March 20, 2001

Dear Tweeters,
I had been wondering how "they" had decided we should switch to the British
"Long-tailed Duck," and now I hear--as I had suspected--that political
correctness had reared its head.
Well, at the not inconsequential risk of offending millions, I shall stick
out my neck and proclaim that I prefer our original American name. I like
old, one-word handles like Mallard, Sora, Rook, and Ruff; there are precious
few of them left, and taxonomic revisions are steadily whittling them down.
Some of the names biologists have come up with in the last few years would
freeze a poet's blood. Perhaps the worst such neologism is "Pacific-slope
Flycatcher." How uneuphonious can one get? It's enough to give William
Jennings Bryan a tongue of lead.
Another name that has apparently bit the dust is "Rufous-sided Towhee."
Isn't it "Eastern Towhee" now? I always detected an endearing foppishness in
the name of that bird, while names with geographical directions in them
never have done much for me.
I guess once in a while it's fun to say "Baldpate" or "Pigeon Hawk," and
now my Oldsquaw is fast becoming one of those quaint old names used by
show-offs and the infirm. It wouldn't be so hard on us lovers of good names,
though, if the biologists would just learn to put the same effort into
coining timeless names, as into their quest for knowledge.

Yours curmudgeonly,
Gary Bletsch
Yanbu, Saudi Arabia


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