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Re: The Papers That Ate Cincinnati



"...smale fowles maken melodye..." (Chaucer)
Scott Perry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>
To: "Dinosaur Mailing List" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: The Papers That Ate Cincinnati


> On 5/4/07, Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu> wrote:
> >
> > *Oiseau* and *uccello* actually are, though not transparently so.
> > They're derived from a diminutive form, something like *avicillum*.
> > Vulgar Latin loved diminutives; that's where we get words like French
> > *soleil* 'sun', from *soliculum* 'little sun' (cf. Latin *sol* 'sun')
> > and Spanish *oveja* 'sheep', from *ovicula* 'little sheep' (cf. Latin
> > *ovis* 'sheep').
>
> Oh, interesting. I actually wondered if such might be the case but was
> too lazy to research. :)
>
> > The Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish words above are actually derived
> > from *passer(um)* 'sparrow'.  Spanish does have the word *ave* (plural
> > *aves*), but it's used, IIRC, for your bigger, less songbirdy types of
> > birds.
>
> I wonder if the pÃjaro/ave distinction is similar to the bird/fowl
> distinction in English. To me at least, "bird" and "fowl" mean the
> same thing, but they have different archetypes: an archetypal "bird"
> would be a songbird, while an archetypal "fowl" would be more like a
> chicken or grouse. Also "fowl" sounds more old-fashioned (and, indeed,
> was more common in older forms of English and pre-English Germanic, I
> think, as "fowle" or "fugela").
>
> At any rate, I've seen this comment come up before, that we can't
> redefine "Aves" to the crown group because Romance speakers would
> never see the word that way, but I've yet to hear from a native
> speaker on the matter. Are there any out who would balk at excluding
> _Ichthyornis_ from "Aves" because it would clash with your everyday
> usage of "aves"? Or is the alternative term ("pÃjaro", "oiseau", etc.)
> common enough that you could continue to use that in a more inclusive
> manner and not care about "Aves" being restricted?
>
> -- 
> Mike Keesey