A gratuitous and unmotivated picture of a beautiful little semipalmated sandpiper. Just because.
But seriously, folks.
I love new birders. And often enough, it’s not hard to tell when a birder is new. It isn’t that he makes identification errors, or that she appreciates only the big, colorful birds; it’s the words they use.
I’ve grown more and more interested in identifying which words are appropriate to a discussion about birding and which are not. We can say, for example, “pair,” but we can’t properly say “couple.” We rightly say “hatched,” but we really shouldn’t say “born.” We speak of a bird’s “parents,” but less readily, I think, of its “father” and “mother.” (I forbear any mention of “Mr.” and “Mrs.” and “Junior.”)
Can you provide additional examples? What makes a word inappropriate in this very precise context? Who decides?
