Young Birds in September (Video)

There's been a cluster of as many as 11 American goldfinches around our purple coneflower seed heads and our feeders in the last 2-3 days, and when we see them up close we notice some have a very fluffy look, not the sleek plumage that mature birds show. I'm not sure whether this is due to their routine late-summer molt in which they transition to winter plumage (at which time the males are no longer bright yellow, but look very similar to the more olive-colored females), or if this is just a normal phase of plumage development for very young goldfinches. Perhaps both! Goldfinches breed late in the season, perhaps bearing a close linkage to the life cycle of the thistle seeds that are a preferred food. Goldfinches are rare in their exclusive preference for a seed-based diet; most other seed eaters also eat some insects.

Also, I got a short video of a female northern cardinal with a juvenile by our front step last evening. Adult females and juveniles look similar, but the adults' beaks are red, while juveniles have dark beaks. In this clip, taken through a window, you'll see the mother feeding the juvie several times -- it looks as if she finds a seed, deftly shells it, spits out the shell, and then feeds the inner kernel to the juvenile. Given the time of year, this would most likely be offspring from a second brood of the season.



Speaking of juveniles, I recently learned that in the birding world the word is often spelled juvenal. Apparently that spelling used to be in general use and meant the same as juvenile, but that usage has become archaic. (However, when capitalized it refers to Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis, A.D. 60?-140?), a Roman satirist.)

I'd seen this spelling in ornithology blogs and wondered about it. My American Heritage dictionary gives this definition:

adj. Of or pertaining to a young bird having its first plumage of true feathers though often lacking the characteristics of its species: juvenal plumage. 

Being interested in words and usage issues, I looked further and found a discussion in the ornithology journal The Auk, contrasting the use of juvenal (traditionally used as an adjective only, though the writer recommended extending this use to noun status) to refer to a specific stage of plumage in young birds, versus juvenile, as either a noun or adjective, referring more generally to any immature bird. So there you have it.

Bird Names: To Capitalize or Not

Update (Jan. 2014): This post, now three years old, is one of the most frequently visited posts I've written. The issue clearly comes up for people a lot. The comments contain some good points that helped me develop my views (and probably state them better), and so I encourage readers to read them too.
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Readers with an editor's eye (perhaps I should say eagle-eyed readers) may have noticed that I've been less than consistent when it comes to the capitalization of the official English names for bird species, such as Northern Cardinal or Black-capped Chickadee (or, as it may happen, northern cardinal and black-capped chickadee).

In this, I'm reminded of my quandary over the use of the apostrophe in common terms like farmers' market and kids' meals, which I explored in some detail three years ago in a post titled Tormented By an Apostrophe. (After some dithering, I came down firmly on the side of retaining the apostrophe despite a modern trend to do without it that is generally supported on the claim that the plural is being used purely as an adjective, not connoting possession; I was convinced to the contrary by applying the question to irregular plurals, concluding that we would not feel comfortable calling something a children meal or looking for women sizes in a department store.)

However, back to capitalization of bird names. There's a split here, basically between ornithologists and the rest of the writing world, except where style guides expressly defer to the common usage in a particular field. As a born editor and English usage junkie, I had to investigate further. (This is going to be a long one, so settle in...)

It's undisputed that the International Ornithologist's Union prescribes capitalization in the official English common names set forth in its definitive IOC World Bird List:

Our goal on behalf of the International Ornithologist's Union, formerly International Ornithological Congress (IOC), is to facilitate worldwide communication in ornithology and conservation through the consistent use of English names linked to current species taxonomy. The English names follow explicit guidelines for spelling and construction that increase clarity of application. ...

An important rule adopted at the outset was that the words of an official bird[']s name begin with capital letters. While this is contrary to the general rules of spelling for mammals, birds, insects, fish, and other life forms (i.e., use lowercase letters), the committee believed the initial capital to be preferable for the name of a bird species in an ornithological context, for two reasons. 

1. It has been the customary spelling in bird books for some years;
2. Because it distinguishes a taxonomic species from a general description of a bird. Several species of sparrows could be described as "white-throated sparrows," but a "White-throated Sparrow" is a particular taxonomic species.

I'd like to point out that the IOC World Bird List website, worldbirdnames.org, is a marvel of clear, simple, precise writing (though not without a few typos), and I admire it very much.

I surveyed our collection of  field guides at home, and found that every one (Sibley, National Geographic, Peterson, Audubon, Golden, and Tekiela) uses the IOC convention of capitalizing all words in a bird's common name except for a word following a hyphen in a hyphenated name, such as White-throated Sparrow.

This practice in the world of ornithology departs from that in most other areas of plant and animal classification, which follows the generally accepted rule of reserving capitalization for proper nouns (such as names of specific people and places, and trade names). Some defenders of the IOC approach say that birds' names ARE proper names, equating Bald Eagle with Johnny Depp, but that doesn't explain why most other groups of animal and plant biologists don't apparently feel the same.

Wikipedia Manual of Style generally requires its contributors to avoid unnecessary capitalization, but recognizes an established exception for bird names:

Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case (oak, lion). There are exceptions; for particular groups of organisms, there are particular rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms; for example, official common names of birds.

So, if all these sources agree to capitalize bird names, what is the authority against it? As Anselm Atkins wrote in The Auk in 1983: "Any American dictionary. Look up "blue jay."

Atkins continues:

Most field guides and some other books do use capitals. On the other hand, birds are confined to lower case in the writings of Darwin, Thoreau, Muir, Aldo Leopold, Stephen Gould, and many others. Highly literate magazines such as Audubon, Smithsonian, National Geographic and National Wildlife do not capitalize birds' names. Neither do Science or Scientific American. A great number of writers and editors thus follow the dictionary rather than the CBE [Council of Biology Editors, which follows the IOC rule for bird names, or at least did at the time Atkins was writing]. ...

Language changes; grammatical usages come and go. There are no eternal verities here; convention and consent are all. Rules of grammar are not handed down from on high--they are merely a codification of actual usage. The dictionary says "what is," not "what should be." Nevertheless, it is proper to follow "what is" as determined by the compilers of current dictionaries. Professional ornithologists and lepidopterists, whose writings surely constitute only a fraction of today's literature, cannot possibly win the day (but what a gallant showing of nets and binoculars against all those typewriters, word processors, and printing presses!). Lacking an Archimedes' fulcrum, we shall never change convention but only succeed in violating it. Meanwhile, our idiosyncrasy causes confusion among those who want to write birds' names correctly. It would be most helpful if we would generously concede and conform. As Humpty-Dumpty said (it's impossible to make it through a reflective essay without quoting Lewis Carroll), it is a question of who is to be master. In this instance, let us surrender to the dictionary. Until we do, we ornithologists, with our Important Capitals, continue to look Curiously Provincial.

Whew! What writer with an interest in nature could dislike being grouped with Muir, Leopold, Gould and the other luminaries mentioned, and who could fail to be charmed by Atkins' comments about "nets and binoculars" and Lewis Carroll? And yet what blogger who focuses on birds wouldn't want to be taken at least a bit seriously in the birding world?

As a writer and editor (this is a significant part of what I do for a living) who is not a trained ornithologist, I have to say those capitals catch my eye. When I use them in my blog posts, they start to bug me. They look old-fashioned and, as Atkins notes, overly Important. They don't seem necessary for clarity most of the time when I or others are writing carefully, though they do indeed convey instant information that sometimes helps avoid ambiguity.

So, I imagine you're thinking, Cut to the chase. What's your decision?

And my answer is that I'm not sure I have a final decision. And, after all this wallowing, I'm not sure that it's really all that important to decide. But if I were writing a Penelopedia style guide right now, here's where I think I'd start, recognizing that I'm a generalist who writes for a wide audience, not an expert writing for a scholarly audience:

• Use IOC format (caps) in lists of bird species, but --
• Use dictionary format (no caps) in general text. There, I said it. I feel relieved. But I will --
• Add the Latin species name in parentheses when needed for clarity

One nice thing about style guides is that while they provide a useful consistency, they can change. (Witness the Associated Press finally in the past year adopting the almost universal non-AP usage of website, abandoning the awful, stilted-looking Web site.) So I'll see how this goes, and if I have problems or  misgivings, I'll revisit the issue.

In the meantime, you general readers, trained ornithologists, and English style junkies out there: what do you think?

Tormented by an Apostrophe

A few weeks after I began this blog, I succumbed to peer pressure and did a terrible thing. And I've felt guilty ever since.

This dreadful deed? Dropping the apostrophe in "farmers market" (there, I shudder just looking at it). It may be correct AP style. It may be increasingly accepted. But in my heart I know it's wrong.

I'm a grammar and usage junkie from way back. My mother paid me to check for errors in the galley proofs of one of her books while I was still in elementary school [well, on further reflection, more like 7th grade]. I got (blush) a perfect 800 score on what used to be called the English Composition Achievement Test. My father was a journeyman printer-proofreader, who learned to proofread movable type upside down and backward. Editing skills have been a big part of my career, though my proofreader's eye does tire and miss things sometimes. So this stuff means something to me; I'll readily engage in a 20-minute debate on the finer points of the English language. I am flexible in a number of areas and am not a strict traditionalist by any means. But "farmers market" sticks in my throat.

There was a big debate not long ago about the naming of Scholars Walk at the University of Minnesota. The no-apostrophe faction won, the prevailing argument being that the walk did not belong to the scholars, it was merely named in honor of them. That argument doesn't persuade me when it's about scholars and it doesn't persuade me when it's about farmers, though it persuades others. See, for example, a journalist's discussion of the issue. Here's another:

Today, the tendency is to drop the apostrophe where once it would have been required. We see this especially in company and organization names. A relatively new distinction has arisen: if the organization is for the benefit of, but not actually owned by a particular group, don’t use an apostrophe. Thus, we have Department of Veterans Affairs, Citizens Insurance, Consumers Energy, and Farmers Market, none of them owned by the group in question. But we’d have a veteran’s benefit check, citizens’ groups, and the farmer’s daughter.

Okay, so there is definitely support for this view. Peer pressure, as I said. And I gave in. But I don't like it, and it's been nagging at me. In my mind, a plural noun is not properly used as an adjective unless it is made possessive. Possessiveness, in grammar, doesn't indicate only ownership; it can also indicate some general relation, a "pertaining to." When you don't want to use a possessive form, you use the singular. We don't say "I'm going to buy a dogs collar," we say "I'm going to buy a dog collar" (or, more elegantly, "I'm going to buy a collar for my dog"!). We don't have employees benefits, we have employee benefits. Or we could, somewhat less elegantly, have employees' benefits, particularly if we're talking about particular employees.

So why do we have Kids Meals? Veterans Day? Farmers markets? Singles bars? That phraseology loses something significant in elegance and precision. I think we could have farm markets, or farmer markets (which sounds odd, but I think that's just because it hasn't happened to become our usual idom), or farmers' markets.

There are some traditionalists who agree with me, like the Lexington Farmers' Market and the Australian Farmers' Markets. And in the article linked above on the Scholars Walk controversy, I see that my favorite newspaper grammarian, Stephen Wilbers, sides with me on this one -- in part because it sounds nonsensical not to use a possessive form when the plural noun is irregular: "women sizes" ("women" being plural already, there is no such word as "womens" without the apostrophe, just as there is no such word as "childrens" without the apostrophe, as Blogger's spell-check is at this moment advising me by way of some red underlining). We don't have children meals at fast-food restaurants. I see no good reason to put up with farmers markets. I think the latter simply sounds more natural to us because the "s" sound at the end of the word suggests the possibility of a possessive, or relational, construction. But without the apostrophe, it simply doesn't work.

So now I have a dilemma: do I go back and edit all my posts that have referred to the "farmers market," and their accompanying tags? Do I resolve not to look backward, but to simply go and sin no more? Or do I live with my wishy-washiness and write it off as one more quandary of the humans condition?