In addition to being posted on MOU, references to the Wall Street
Journal article on field guides has shown up on other birding sites,
some with questions about the significance of the tittle. Here is the
explanation as I understand it.
Manley Olson
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [BIRDCHAT] Knowing a Hawk From a Handsaw
Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 07:43:38 -0500
From: Manley Olson <[email protected]>
To:
CC:
While on the face of it knowing a hawk from a handsaw appears to be a
ludicrous statement, it has a factual basis. The phrase is from
Shakespeare and has its basis in the colloquial names for heron which
included hernshaw and hernser. It is easy to see how to see these could
be corrupted to handsaw. Shakespeare also talks of knowing jays from
turtles where his reference is to the turtle dove as is the King James
Bible reference to the voice of the turtle. Shakespeare was an observer
of of birds and includes many references in his works. Unfortunately he
has one reference to starlings which was part of the impetus for an
enthusiastic Shakespeare lover to import all of the birds he mentioned
to America which is how we got starlings.
Manley Olson
St Paul MN
On 5/28/2012 5:52 AM, Boute Expeditions - It's life time wrote: >
Interesting... > >
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203604577397871538852242.html
> > > Sent from my iPod > > Paulo Boute, Brazil. > > -- > > > >
<[email protected]> > > BirdChat Guidelines:
http://www.ksbirds.org/birdchat/ > Archives:
http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdchat.html >
----
Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net
Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
