This is trivial and unimportant, and if I had Joe Meche's sense I would go out and watch something instead of sitting here typing -- though we do have our usual great show of birds on the lake and at the feeders. I just want to point out that the sound represented in English by "j" or sometimes "g" isn't a single, pure consonant according to phonetics. It's a combination of a "d" closely followed by the "zh" sound as in "azure." (Similarly, the "ch" sound of English [chap, chum] is "t" closely followed by "sh" as in "show."] So no matter how you think you're saying it or how you spell it, that's the way your tongue and breath make it. I say this in the interests of Science and Truth, with a capital S and a capital T, to which we are all dedicated. Oh, did I tell ya about the Eskimo Curlew I saw yesterday . . . ?

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503

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From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu on behalf of Kelly Cassidy
Sent: Sat 1/6/2007 10:44 AM
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] Widgeons


When I say the name of that duck with the pale head, I put a 'd' in the sound: "Wid'-jun"

When I say the name of that silo-cooer, I say "Pih-jun", with no "d" sound.

But, I just looked up the pronunciation in my Webster's, and they are identical (no "d" sound) except for the first consonant.

Joe Meche is right. I should go outside and enjoy the gale-force wind and soggy slush.

Kelly





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From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu [mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Kelly McAllister
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 9:28 AM
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Widgeons


At some point, as Arlo Guthrie pointed out in Alice's Restaurant, you can get enough people doing something that it becomes a genuine movement that causes societal change. It's looking like we've got the kind of force of numbers to be forcing the spelling of wigeon back to what it's supposed to be. Perhaps we should do the same with "pigeon".

Kelly McAllister

----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Monda <mailto:jmonda at sprynet.com>
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 9:19 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Widgeons

Someone told me --so confidently that I was suspicious-- that the widgeons that arrive at Greenlake o/a Halloween and leave o/a April 15 nest in Siberia. Does anyone know whether this is a fact?

Joe Monda
Seattle
jmonda at sprynet.com


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