Hi Tweets,

>From UKbirdnet, of interest, in case you've ever wondered where the term
'stint' arose; Malcom Ogilvie supplies the answer.

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)


>>
>You may have already seen the entry on Stint in the Oxford Book of
>British Bird Names (Lockwood, 1984) but it is worth repeating here if
>only to demonstrate how tortuous some etymological arguments can get!!
>
>[quote]
>
>A local term for the Dunlin, in use along the east coast from
>Northumberland to Suffolk, also in Sussex. It makes its debut in 1452
>'Styntis', the present spelling first in 1622. We propose to regard the
>word as a folk-etymological alteration of 'Stent', known from a document
>of 1579, and this in turn as a corruption of 'Snent', the name used in
>Berwicks. The ultimate meaning we assume to be beak, arguing as follows:
>The Dunlin, with its long, strong bill rather closely resembles the
>Snipes, hence such local Dunlin names as Sea Snipe, common in the north
>and in Scotland, or Little Snipe, heard in Yorkshire (Swaledale) and
>Sand Snipe, in Glos. We recall that Snipe literally means beak and
>suggest that Snent belongs to the same series of words, to which one
>may, indeed, add Neb in view of its Low German congener 'sneb'.
>
>[endquote]
>
>Perhaps the above comes under your heading of "cannot find anything
>useful"!
>
>Malcolm
>
>PS I don't know what he means about "used in Berwicks". Does he mean
>Berwick, the town on the Northumberland border, or does he mean 'Bewick'
>the author (who is quoted in the bibliography), or what/
>--
>Malcolm Ogilvie, Isle of Islay, Scotland, U.K.
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