Subject: Fwd: delete if you've heard enough Oldsquaw talk
Date: Mar 22 17:57:19 2001
From: Scott Atkinson - scottratkinson at hotmail.com


Hey Shypoke:

Are you implying that those of us who prefer Oldsquaw to Long-tailed Duck
have been disrespectful? If so, I say rubbish. The Oldsquaw name was
handed down over many years and field guides, a name that has a uniqueness,
brevity and a certain history on its side, albeit not necessarily a happy
history but it's there, you can't erase it. Let's stop blaming today's
people for yesterday's events, already. And because we are the contemporary
purveyors of the common name Oldsquaw, the meaning also shifts somewhat with
our usage. To me, for example, it's a name associated with many memories
and different circumstances, none of them even remotely tied to the crude
epithet for native American women that you alluded to.

By the way Tweeters--is it just me or does the "Long-tailed Duck" seem
un-duck-like? (Thinking of Ruddy, Muscovy, Wood, and various dabbling
ducks). "Long-tailed Scoter" would at least have the right habitat
association, but we would not be standardized.

International name standardization (as opposed to politically-correct
orthodoxy) does seem a worthy goal, it's just hard to immediately accept our
loons all becoming--divers, our buteos--buzzards, Mews--Common Gulls, etc.

Scott Atkinson
Lake Stevens
email: scottratkinson at hotmail.com

>From: SHYPOKEGM at aol.com
>Reply-To: SHYPOKEGM at aol.com
>To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
>Subject: Fwd: delete if you've heard enough Oldsquaw talk
>Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 13:41:34 EST
>
>
><< message3.txt >>

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