Burt Guttman wrote:

>More years ago than I like to remember, a birder friend and I were taking
>biology together in high school. We each had to give an oral report on
>some group of birds. He took the chickadees and their relatives, and I
>remember him saying that he thought he would just not mention titmice.

You can look through all the books you want, and there isn't a single
species of bird called "titmouse" except our Tufted, Plain, and Bridled.
The dozens of Eurasian and African species of this family are plain and
simple "tits," and I wondered if "titmouse" was an American euphemism for
that word.

However, the unabridged second-edition Random House Dictionary set me
straight. The "mouse" in "titmouse" appears to date from around 1300, from
Old English *mase*, German *Meise*, and Old Norse *meis*, the name for
those cute little birds in those languages, while the "tit" part of it
appears to date from a few centuries later, stemming from Norwegian *tite*
(for the bird), that in turn coming perhaps from Old Norse *tittr* (a tack
or pin). Although not further explained, I wondered if that might allude
to their small size. Thoroughly confused?

The "tit" that makes my biology classes titter when I talk about research
on Great Tits and Blue Tits (and, yes, for those of you who love to take
trips of the imagination, there are even Penduline Tits) is a much older
word, coming from before 1100, when many European languages had words
similar to the English "teat." Got it now?

Enough of this. We don't want Jesse Helms or Bob Dole looking into tweeters.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416