365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Winter Residents
Day 130: One of my most reliable winter birds is good old Spotted Towhee, aka Rufous-Sided Towhee (Pipilo maculatus), but exactly how his name is pronounced is a subject of some conjecture. Webster's Third New International Dictionary offers several options. I can't seem to copy the schwa (upside-down e) to a post, so you will have to make do with my phonetic renditions. A schwa has the sound of the o in "collect", i.e., cuh-LECT. Webster first lists TUHW-ee. The next choice puts the emphasis on the final syllable: tuhw-EE. Last of all comes the pronunciation I hear most often (one which sets my nerves on edge as surely as fingernails on a chalkboard): TOE-hee. As I say it, it is more like the first option, but with a slightly stronger first syllable, TOO-wee. But nowhere can I find justification for another pronunciation, TAU-ee.
I don't care how,
Too or toe,
But toss out tau.
It just ain't so.
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