Hi Tweets,

Jerry Converse writes:

>I would think that as beautiful and the Oldsquaw Duck is, that the
>elderly would take it as a compliment. I think it is a small minority
>that takes offense.

Well, using a sample size of two is a good way to support one's point, I
suppose. Especially when they support your point.

But consider: several hundred years ago, the first white explorers reaching
Japan were called 'Butter-eaters' by the Japanese. The denotation of the
term was a cutely inoffensive 'those who eat too much meat/fat'. The
connotative intent of the word was simpler and far more deliberately
insulting: stinker. To the culturally-entrained, fastidious Japanese nose
(of the time), white men stank. All white men.

Now, do you think it's just politically correctness for those whites who did
not *in fact* stink to resent the term's connotation? To resent being
labelled so pejoratively? To want not to let the Japanese of the time hide
behind the term's innocent-sounding denotation?

Secondly, if 'Oldsquaw' is acceptable, let's revive some of the other
charmingly contemporary hunters' and fishers' names for ducks and other
seabirds: nigger goose (Double-crested Cormorant); black haddown (Sooty
Shearwater), derived from 'hag's down'--another term for 'slut's wool', a
term of the whorehouse, and sexism doesn't get much more egregious than the
whorehouse; niggerhead (White-winged Scoter), etc. Let's show these
politically-correct latte-drinkers we ain't a-gonna let a little thing like
racism or sexism from a-callin' these here birds by their original names, by
heck, no.

Huh? The original name *was* Long-tailed Duck, before it was 'Oldsquaw'? Oops.

>To those (minority) I would apologize if any thing I
>said was offensive. It was not intended to be.

If I offend, Jerry, I hope it's always by intent. '-)

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net

"She's psychic....we've decided to find it charming."
--Frasier