How the Whale Got His Throat
E339543
"How the Whale Got His Throat" is one of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, a whimsical origin tale explaining how the whale came to have a narrow throat.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| How the Whale Got His Throat canonical | 2 |
| How the Whale Got His Throat (Just So Stories) | 1 |
| The Whale and the 'Stute Fish (earlier magazine version) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3235096 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: How the Whale Got His Throat Context triple: [The Elephant’s Child, relatedWorkByAuthor, How the Whale Got His Throat]
-
A.
The Whale
The Whale is the distinctive, swooping-roof ice hockey arena at Yale University designed by architect Eero Saarinen.
-
B.
Old Man of the Sea
Old Man of the Sea is a parasitic, mythical figure from the Sinbad tales in One Thousand and One Nights who clings to a victim’s shoulders and forces them to carry him endlessly.
-
C.
The Pearl of Orr's Island
The Pearl of Orr's Island is a 19th-century novel set in coastal Maine that explores themes of morality, community, and Christian faith through the lives of its seafaring characters.
-
D.
The Sea Beast
The Sea Beast is a 1926 silent adventure film loosely based on Herman Melville’s "Moby-Dick," notable for starring John Barrymore in one of his most famous early screen roles.
-
E.
The Sea Beast
The Sea Beast is a 2022 animated adventure film from Netflix about a young girl who stows away on a legendary sea monster hunter’s ship, featuring Karl Urban as the voice of the famed hunter Jacob Holland.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: How the Whale Got His Throat Target entity description: "How the Whale Got His Throat" is one of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, a whimsical origin tale explaining how the whale came to have a narrow throat.
-
A.
The Whale
The Whale is the distinctive, swooping-roof ice hockey arena at Yale University designed by architect Eero Saarinen.
-
B.
Old Man of the Sea
Old Man of the Sea is a parasitic, mythical figure from the Sinbad tales in One Thousand and One Nights who clings to a victim’s shoulders and forces them to carry him endlessly.
-
C.
The Pearl of Orr's Island
The Pearl of Orr's Island is a 19th-century novel set in coastal Maine that explores themes of morality, community, and Christian faith through the lives of its seafaring characters.
-
D.
The Sea Beast
The Sea Beast is a 1926 silent adventure film loosely based on Herman Melville’s "Moby-Dick," notable for starring John Barrymore in one of his most famous early screen roles.
-
E.
The Sea Beast
The Sea Beast is a 2022 animated adventure film from Netflix about a young girl who stows away on a legendary sea monster hunter’s ship, featuring Karl Urban as the voice of the famed hunter Jacob Holland.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
children's story
ⓘ
origin story ⓘ short story ⓘ |
| author | Rudyard Kipling ⓘ |
| belongsToLiteraryTradition | British children's classics ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| explains | why whales have narrow throats ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Just So Stories ⓘ |
| genre |
children's literature
ⓘ
fantasy ⓘ mythic fiction ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation |
animated adaptations of Just So Stories
ⓘ
radio adaptations of Just So Stories ⓘ stage adaptations of Just So Stories ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeTitle |
How the Whale Got His Throat
ⓘ
surface form:
How the Whale Got His Throat (Just So Stories)
|
| hasCharacterType | talking animals ⓘ |
| hasCollectionType | Just So Stories collection ⓘ |
| hasCulturalImpact | frequently anthologized in children's story collections ⓘ |
| hasForm | prose ⓘ |
| hasIllustrationsBy | Rudyard Kipling ⓘ |
| hasKeyPlotPoint | mariner tricks the Whale with a raft and suspenders ⓘ |
| hasMoralElement | do not be greedy ⓘ |
| hasNarrativeFrame | told as a bedtime story to a child listener ⓘ |
| hasNarrativeStructure | cause-and-effect explanation ⓘ |
| hasTargetAgeGroup | middle-grade children ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
consequences of greed
ⓘ
cunning and cleverness ⓘ origins of animal characteristics ⓘ |
| includedIn | editions of Just So Stories for children ⓘ |
| intendedAudience | children ⓘ |
| isFollowedBy | How the Camel Got His Hump ⓘ |
| isPrecededBy |
How the Whale Got His Throat
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
The Whale and the 'Stute Fish (earlier magazine version)
|
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryDevice |
anthropomorphism
ⓘ
etiological myth ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | Edwardian era ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
the 'Stute Fish
ⓘ
the Whale ⓘ the shipwrecked mariner ⓘ |
| narrativeStyle | third-person narration ⓘ |
| narrativeTone |
humorous
ⓘ
whimsical ⓘ |
| partOf | Just So Stories ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1902 ⓘ |
| publisher |
Macmillan and Co.
ⓘ
surface form:
Macmillan & Co.
|
| resultIn | Whale can only eat small creatures like fish ⓘ |
| setting | the sea ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: How the Whale Got His Throat Description of subject: "How the Whale Got His Throat" is one of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, a whimsical origin tale explaining how the whale came to have a narrow throat.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
The Elephant’s Child
this entity surface form:
How the Whale Got His Throat (Just So Stories)
How the Whale Got His Throat
→
isPrecededBy
→
How the Whale Got His Throat
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
this entity surface form:
The Whale and the 'Stute Fish (earlier magazine version)