CoolGreenScience blog has an article about Yellow Bellied Sap suckers.
as kids, we used this phrase as a joke, but there actually are such birds: A relative of the lowly woodpecker.
which brings me to wonder: Where do some of these birds get their names?
In English, Yellow implies coward, and a more emphatic version of this is to call someone yellow bellied. But according to the blog post, these birds are quite aggressive, at least when it comes to mating. So one has to presume the double meaning of it's name doesn't fit here.
Yellow bellied sap sucker is obvious: Because they open holes into trees. Ditto for woodpecker, who pecks on wood, never mind that this has an X rated double meaning in the present day world.
And then, as this scienceblog post notes, we also have tits.
Here, of course, I'm referring to the Paridae family, which has provided all manner of amusement, especially when you start to list some of the individual species with particularly intriguing names. Such as the Elegant Tit, the White-Browed Tit, the Great Tit, the Yellow Tit, the Siberian Tit, and (I'm not sure what to make of this) the Varied Tit. In fact, to add to the innuendo, there are even the doubly referenced Stripe-breasted Tit and Yellow-breasted Tit.
The word "tit" is an old word for small (sorry ladies) so it is obvious where the bird got it's name.
and then there are boobies.
Boobies?
Again Wikipedia to the rescue.
The English name "booby" was possibly based on the Spanish slang term bobo, meaning "stupid".
that word is still used in English to call someone stupid, so that makes sense.
And Boobies are not the only birds with a name that implies they lack intelligence:.
the mighty Albatross, known to most of us only because we were tortured in school to memorize the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, was renamed "Gooney bird" by sailors who encountered them in Midway Island.
....
No comments:
Post a Comment