Subject: Re: Aythya in English
Date: Apr 19 11:26:52 1997
From: Irene Wanner - iwanner at u.washington.edu


The small Liddell-Scott Greek lexicon spells it aithuia and defines as a
seagull or diver, Lat. mergus. Transliteration from Greek to Latin and
then changing spellings over the centuries sometimes make words hard to
find. It's odd the word didn't go ai to ae to e, which is common. - Irene

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997 steppie at wolfenet.com wrote:

> Bob,
>
> According to *A Source book for Biological Names( E.C. Jaeger. 1955. Thomas
> Pub.), Aythya comes from the Greek aithya meaning "seabird."*
>
> Andy Stepniewski
> Wapato WA
> >Tweets,
> >
> >I need your help, please. Every day in the biology class at Sequim High
> >School, Shirley Anderson, the teacher, gives the students a "species of
> >the day," in which the students learn scientific name, habitat, and
> >characteristics of a local plant, animal, or other organism. Part of
> >learning the scientific name includes the English translation of the
> >Latin name.
> >
> >Today they studied Redhead, _Aythya_ _americana_. Shirley cannot find
> >the English translation of _Aythya_ and neither can I. Nothing in the
> >high school library helped, either. Does anyone out there know the
> >English translation of _Aythya_, or the origin of this name? If anyone
> >has the book _Words for Birds_ (now out of print, I think) it would
> >undoubtedly say, but I don't have a copy.
> >
> >This is a true test of the value of the internet!
> >
> >Thank you in advance for your reply.
> >
> >Bob Boekelheide
> >Sequim
> >
> >
>
>