{"id":10529,"date":"2016-05-27T05:19:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T12:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=10529"},"modified":"2016-05-27T05:19:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T12:19:29","slug":"whitestart-just-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/27\/whitestart-just-say-no\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Whitestart&#8221;? Just Say No"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Painted redstart, Arizona, August\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/20035398453\/in\/photolist-wwsDWn-xbQanx-xsw3NU-qLY2PK-rx4Cwt-qNrCqj-quGnge-pAvrcD-pyK2R9-pyJYgo-pjhBA5-pjgyCc-pAvpnB-pjgAbT-pAKJ97-pjhCiY-pjiige-pjiioD-pjijgv-pAvoPx-pjhUSs-pjhzKG-pjgCoD-pAKKBY-pjhAs3-pAMzLz-pAKKHE-pyK1cs-pAKERW-pyK1Jj-pjijNn-pjgDzB-pyK29C-pjieLi-pyK3qW-pAvq8z-pjhAyA-pAvpan-pyK2ps-pjgDai-pjhCZ7-pAvpgK-pjhCfb-pjijFZ-pAKHfJ-pAMyjB-pjhWpA-pAvqXR-pjhVeQ-nN9gha\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/c6.staticflickr.com\/1\/686\/20035398453_029262ed86_z.jpg\" alt=\"Painted redstart, Arizona, August\" width=\"640\" height=\"349\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It matters no more to me than it does to the birds themselves what we call the warblers of the genus\u00a0<em>Myioborus<\/em>. Names, after all, don&#8217;t signify in the same way as other words. Call these tropical flitters redstarts or whitestarts or falsestarts: each of those names is just as &#8220;good&#8221; and just as &#8220;bad&#8221; as the others.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the AOU check-list committee&#8217;s\u00a0judgment on Proposal 2016-A-2 can go with equal appropriateness either way, retaining the traditional name &#8220;redstart&#8221; or adopting the neologism &#8220;whitestart.&#8221;\u00a0It&#8217;s hard to get terribly exercised about\u00a0onomastic housekeeping like this.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Common Redstart\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/26666402504\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/8\/7314\/26666402504_79cf63a4f4_z.jpg\" alt=\"Common Redstart\" width=\"640\" height=\"523\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>But what does have my dander just the slightest bit up is the argument presented in the Proposal to make the change. It seems to go like this: the outer rectrices in\u00a0<em>Myioborus\u00a0<\/em>are white, not red; and<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;start&#8221; of course is the modern English reflex of Middle English stert, Old English steort, tail of an animal.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ergo, the vernacular name applied to\u00a0<em>Myioborus, <\/em>with their flashy white tails,\u00a0is a &#8220;misappropriation&#8221; that would &#8220;perpetuate ignorance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not true at all (&#8220;of course&#8221;). &#8220;Start&#8221; hasn&#8217;t meant &#8220;tail&#8221; in English for more than six hundred years; if you don&#8217;t believe me, ask any other native speaker. The bird name &#8220;redstart&#8221; has been etymologically opaque for just as long. In other words, &#8220;redstart&#8221; doesn&#8217;t mean &#8220;red-tail&#8221; to any English-speaker; it refers, depending on which continent you spend most of your time on, to either a chunky chat or an active wood warbler.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Myioborus\u00a0<\/em>warblers are nothing if not active (whether they are wood warblers or not is a question for another day). Only naive pedantry can claim that their\u00a0white tails\u00a0disqualify them from redstartness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It matters no more to me than it does to the birds themselves what we call the warblers of the genus\u00a0Myioborus. Names, after all, don&#8217;t signify in the same way as other words. Call these tropical flitters redstarts or whitestarts or falsestarts: each of those names is just as &#8220;good&#8221; and just as &#8220;bad&#8221; as &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/27\/whitestart-just-say-no\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8220;Whitestart&#8221;? Just Say No&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10530,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions\/10530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}