This tweetwers group is just too fun. An interesting debate has arisen
here, so once again I find myself pulled from the tedious stack of
research papers on my desk to enter into the fray.
The first item researched was the Council of Biology Editors
Manual of Style. The edition available to me was number 5 from 1983. It
basically recounts the same rules as the Chicago Manual of Style (indeed,
it refers the reader there for clarification). However, before it gets
to the exact rules of hyphenation, it says the following: "Compound
common names of plants and animals may be hyphenated, run together, or
written as two words according to rules governing taxonomy" (pg. 140).
It refers the reader to page 187 for this. This section ends "Consult an
appropriate dictionary." It recommends Webster's Third International (a
patriotic thing to do, as Webster is preferred by American editorial
groups over the more comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary; I'll come
back to both in a moment.) Moving to page 187, the CBE Manual states,
"The AOU publishes a checklist of North American birds . . . It recognizes the vernacular
names for species but not for subspecies). So what these two quotations
suggest is that if the AOU Checklist Committee wants to break new ground
for hyphenation as it has done, it can. So if the AOU wants screech owl
to be screech-owl, as Yul Brenner said in the Ten Commandments, "so it is
written, so shall it be done" regardless of how anyone feels about it.
However, most of the reference manuals and dictionaries which I have
consulted would suggest that the hyphenation of adjective to noun as has
been done with Screech-Owl and the others goes against the rules of
usage. The bulk of my argument (with the exception of one sentence on
convenience which comes from personal experience) dealt with the logic of
hyphenation of these forms alone versus the
usages recommended within the appropriate references (the CBE and CHicago
Manuals and the Webster's noted above). The AOU has the right to
hyphenate, but my argument against looks at the __LACK__ of logic of such
hyphenation within the guidelines various editorial boards have
established.
My argument was not against compund adjectives like "long-eared"
vs. "short-eared"; these adjectives are correctly hyphenated(though I
favor a change from short-eared owl to cork-headed owl, but I digress) . I
also note two times when hyphens seem to be logical: when two common names are
combined showing a bird which shares physical attributes, Quail-Dove, for
example; and when the call is sounded out as in whip-poor-will and
chuck-will's-widow (but note below for interesting trivia). The third
type, that which scrub-jay would fall into, is the one which I suggest
eliminating as it goes against both the rules of the language and the
regular evolutionary path of hyphenates within our language. On these
bases, the hyphenation seems to be illogical and out of step with common
usage. Even if the hyphens were removed, the close relationship of the
species would still be apparent; a piddling piece of punctuation being
removed does not lessen the power of commonality of words. Certainly
there are exceptions to the relationship as one writer noted about
grosbeak (from the French word grosbec; had to look it up and thought I'd
share it), but with two names in common, such a mix-up is less likely
to occur. A removal of hyphens in these places is convenient (though
easily remedied in about 5 seconds with the Find and Replace functions on
most modern word processors), but more importantly this is more uniform
with usage throughout American English.

NOW TO THE ENTERTAINMENT PORTION OF THE PROGRAM

In looking at the library, I got out the Oxford English Dictionary and
looked up some of the bird names which have been noted of late. Here's
some examples of the lack of consistency in these issues over time which
makes the use of the word logic with my own argument somewhat tenuous.
1) whip-poor-will: The Webster's dictionary that the CBE refers us to
now uses whippoorwill. In the OED are found the following variants:
a) whippoo-will (1709, Lawson's New Voyage to Carolina)
b) Whipperwill (1778, Carver's Travels in North America)
c) wippervill (1822, Woods' Two Years Residence in Iliinois)
d) whippowill (MArk Twain's Huck Finn)
e) whip-poor-will (R.T. Peterson's 1960 Birds of Texas among others)
2) chuck-will's widow--The apostrophe is dropped by Edwin James in his
account of Stephen Long's expedition published in 1823. The second
hyphen is left out by someone named Audubon in 1828.
3) Killdeer--All notations in the OED are one word, though some are
Kildeer and some are Killdee. My hyphenated examples are truly
non-standard.
4) Chickadee--Again all OED entries are as we now ue, except for a
Chicadee noted in Thoreau's Walden in 1854. 16 years previous, Thoreau
had the K in it. All that living alone by a lake I guess.
5) Screech Owl--Is hyphenated many times. But before despairing, it is
generally hyphenated, according to the OED, most of these are from
English literature, and these references refer not to our screech owl,
but to a common poetic name for the Barn Owl, and not the barn owl we
think of but Strix flammeus, which I think is a tawny owl but can't
remember for sure. A 1671 reference by Ogilby does note Screech-Owl with
a hyphen, but this is the only use of a hyphen with screech owl until . . .
If you didn't like the first part, I hoped the entertainment
portion amused you somewhat. Find good birds this weekend! Aloha!
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Ray Korpi
rkorpi at clark.edu
wrk: 360-992-2215
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