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  1. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    There's no intellectual obligation to adjust your actions to accommodate idiocy either, idiocy should always be called out for what it is and fought against as hard as possible (by anyone who isn't an idiot). John
  2. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    It's not, strictly speaking: but there's a world of difference between adopting a local name whether indigenous (kangaroo anybody?) or colonial (anything Spanish or Portugese from South America) and just adapting a bit of scrambled Greek or Latin. We've been including foreign words in English...
  3. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    Isn't that part of the name groups that I really detest: the totally lazy use of a scientific genus name as the basis for a "common/English" name (like Euphonia for instance)? John
  4. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    If it read this thread I think it would do what lovers often do! John
  5. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I've never seen Long-tailed Bushtit written anywhere and certainly never heard it in the field. I had however been wondering why the upheaval specialists thought Bearded Tit needed changing but not Long-tailed Tit. L-t Bushtit doesn't need hating because it's not a thing. John
  6. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    They are always allowed: "Godwin's Law" that states an argument is over when someone resorts to the use of Hitler's name is a device for people who have just lost an argument. John
  7. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I was thinking more of the mainstream who feel threatened by anybody being different and suppress it by mocking or just straightforward bullying. They make sure what they are - football players at break as well as in PE, Friends watchers, fans of whatever the most mainstream bands are - defines...
  8. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I had RAE Farnborough to play with: everything from Shackletons and Beverley through Scimitars and Buccaneers to Comets and BAC111s. Not to mention the liaison DH Devons and the Dak, originally serialled KG661 till someone discovered that belonged to an aircraft lost in the Berlin Airlift (so...
  9. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I'm closer to your view than Andy's on this but there are a lot of factors at work. People are different and some of that is based on their environment - hard to be engaged by local nature in an inner city, David Lindo notwithstanding - and some on the company they keep. Force doesn't work to...
  10. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    Not to mention something of a neo-colonialist attitude..... John
  11. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    Seems to me the most effective way to protest would be to boycott e-bird. If enough birders do that (I'm including all those who serve as reviewers and suchlike, without whom the data will quickly become useless) it will die and the committees will be forced to remember where their data comes...
  12. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    You'll definitely get fifty percent of people complaining about Marmite..... John
  13. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I don't think at this point in history we should be looking to change local names that have stuck. Is it true that kangaroo means "I don't know"? - whether it is or not, are we about to change Red Kangaroo to "Big Red Giant Hopping Pouched Thing" in the interests of having something English and...
  14. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    Well, for me it's quite simple. This is at best a North American and worst a US organisation and its reach should be confined to North American (or US) endemics as appropriate, on jurisdictional grounds. Anything more than that carried out unilaterally is plain colonialism. Seeking naming...
  15. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I make use of "flesh" paint on European origin WWII model figures (and Elves, Dwarves and Dunedain/Gondorians) and I don't think any modeller or wargame figure painter across the globe is in doubt as to what colour it is. Whether that's more or less than the number of birders who've even heard...
  16. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    That's exactly why you should not worry about some pressure group being offended when making decisions about anything at all. John
  17. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    C'est la vie..... John
  18. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    Its just a name and it was all a long time ago. If you want some poetic justice look what happened to them.... This whole name thing is First World problems and I don't care that some people don't like the term First World, either. These people should go and solve war, world poverty, chronic...
  19. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    But the problem people don't want people associated with bird names and continents are not peoples so their own argument defeats them - in my opinion, which strangely I value more than BYOB or whatever they are called. John
  20. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    No, even I can see a difference there. Inca Dove is plain wrong and we all love accuracy so it needs changing. OK, so call it Aztec Dove and end of problem. The others you refer to are (a) English names and only those for whom English is their native tongue have a right to question them...
  21. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    For years I had the same dislike of defacing books. Eventually I realised they are not only reference works that need to be useful but mine. It's only my business if I write in them. I still do it with pencil not biro though! John
  22. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I have no compunction about writing in field guides where necessary, it's certainly preferable to buying a new one if only editorial changes and not new plates are in a new edition. John
  23. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I'm not familiar with the people behind these names but surely Cadena and Jamarillo are names of Spanish origin and the Spanish are white. Unless someone is going to tell me the conquistadores were people of colour, of course. How does that affect what, in the interest of understanding across...
  24. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    Touche..... however the Beardie is essentially on its own taxonomically whereas Yank Robin is an unequivocal thrush in a group where the same authorities as are currently flailing wildly about them have already renamed the other misnamed birds from robin to thrush, a level of inconsistency that...
  25. Farnboro John

    Poll - Do you agree or disagree with the AOS's recent decision to abandon the use of eponymous bird names?

    I certainly agree about the sparrows. It is more than time they were renamed buntings, but it would aid the transition if the first half of their English names were to be retained. John
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