Subject: [Tweeters] Birding and language
Date: Jan 14 12:23:28 2006
From: Brett Wolfe - m_lincolnii at yahoo.com
Yes, I bird. I am a birder. I also google a lot. Does the fact that I utilize changes in vernacular make me a bad person? I also say stuff like "Sup yo?" and "Take it to the Hizzy!". Does this make me a bad person? Someone wrote me back the other day to complain of syntax erros of all things! People! The only constant is change, and that goes for our language as well. Why do some insist that theirs is the only right way? Stop, take the time to realize that both are just different ways of looking at the same thing, and that neither is inherently "right". Maybe you (the unnamed you) need to look at what caused you to feel the way you do and to try to understand the different point of view. The world of 2006 is way different from the world of the 1970's, which I'm sure was way different than the 1920's, etc., etc. Can't we all just get along? And while I'm at it, I'll use my other favorite language to list what I saw this morning while walking around town: AMRO, SOSP, BUSH, DOW!
O, NOFL,
EUST, SPTO, ROPI, GWGU, RBGU, MALL, GADW, AMWI, BUFF, DCCO, HOSP, GCSP, AMCR, STJA, BCCH, BEWR, RCKI, GCKI. Good birding y'all! May the Seahawks take it to the Hizzy and bring us a Supa Bowl!!
Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com
"Edwin D. Lamb" <edsplace2 at comcast.net> wrote:
All right Mike! That's what I do, I watch birds. I don't
know what it is to bird something. The word doesn't make a
very good verb, in my opinion.
Edwin Lamb in Bellevue, WA
edsplace2 at comcast.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Patterson"
To: "Tweeters"
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 7:46 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] RE: birding history
> At the risk of being accused of picking nits, people who
> studied
> birds before the mid-60's would not have called what they
> did
> birding. They would have been as repulsed by the term
> birding
> and reacted in the same way many did a few months ago to
> "googling".
> They would probably have cringed the way I cringe when I
> hear
> "journaling" or "scrap-booking".
>
> Back in the day, people referred to themselves as
> bird-watchers,
> ornithologist, naturalists, but not birders. The term
> came into
> common usage in the late-60's and early-70's as a
> mechanism to
> distinguish a class of "extreme" birdwatchers focused on
> bird study
> as a sport. It was an unabashedly elitist way to separate
> the list
> building, ID focused bird chasers from the little old
> ladies, eccentric
> gentlemen and shotgun ornithologists most people thought
> of when
> characterizing bird-watchers. Since that time it has
> come, more less,
> to identify all classes of bird students, much to the
> annoyance of some
> old school birders.
>
> It is this difference in the definition of what a birder
> is that
> often leads to hurt feelings and impugned characters.
> This is the
> a big chunk of the reason why some folks were so grumpy
> about the study
> done by the USFWS claiming 46 million birders.
>
> Me? Even though I came of age in the age of the "true
> birders" and
> have an elitist streak in me, I still call myself a
> bird-watcher and
> celebrate my eccentric gentlemanliness... or a
> naturalist... or an
> ecologist. I only use birder when talking with the press,
> for
> efficiency sake...
>
> --
> Mike Patterson
> Astoria, OR
> celata at pacifier.com
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