I'd like to introduce a twist on the issue of censorship, Michael, and suggest that you may be loving your language not wisely but too well.

I think that "breeding plumage" is far and away the best description for the orange-and-black of the American Redstart. That is the purpose of the plumage, after all: to help the male attract a mate, defend a territory, or both, for the purpose of successful breeding.

The fact that it is possible to breed in another plumage is immaterial. Almost everybody knows what is meant by the term "basketball uniform," but I venture to say that Gary Payton in khakis and a bomber jacket would clobber me one-on-one, regardless of my attire. It is clearly possible to play basketball in something other than a "basketball uniform," but there is still no better term to apply to what the Sonics play their games in. I shudder to think what the authors of "definitive alternate plumage" might call it.

Usage of terms like this seems to me to be a misguided attempt to remove any possibility of ambiguity. "Definitive alternate plumage" is a rather opaque expression, and there's not much point in sacrificing clarity for the sake of clarity.

People complain bitterly about the use of "legalese," but at least the lawyers have good reasons for using it.

I applaud efforts to get things right linguistically, but in the absence of what I consider useful alternatives, I'm going to keep saying "breeding plumage" when I mean "breeding plumage," and even "fall migration" when I mean "summer-and-fall-generally-southward migration."

Jim McCoy
Redmond, WA
jfmccoy at earthlink.net

----------
From: Michael Price[SMTP:mprice at mindlink.bc.ca]
Reply To: mprice at mindlink.bc.ca
Sent: Sunday, July 05, 1998 1:50 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: 1st Year Male Amer Redstarts (was: Am. Redstart in Idaho)

Hi Tweets,

Belatedly, a short comment: in terms of its plumage, male American Redstart
Setophaga ruticilla is a two-year bird in that it doesn't acquire its
black-and-orange Definitive Alternate plumage until its second Alternate
molt, but has, as ably pointed out by others, an Alternate 1 plumage only
slightly different from its Basic plumage.

It's an old line but worth hauling out again: English is our Mother Tongue,
and it's a cruel child which makes its mother cry.... '-)

As the usual terminology has the second-year Def Alt plumage as the
"official" 'Breeding' plumage and anything else the male wears as a
'Non-breeding' plumage, and the Alt 1 male is --as a recent local nesting
has shown-- fully capable of successful mating and parenting, we have the
interesting phenomenon of a breeding bird in 'non-breeding' plumage--an
avoidable semantic nonsense ranking up there with an Autumn Migration which
begins before the Summer Solstice.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery, and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)