Posted on 12/20/2017 7:01:27 AM PST by Western Phil
Last Saturday or so was the beginning of the Audubon Christmas bird count. More or less coincidently, I started tossing out a little bird food on the patio. Usually I do that a little earlier, but due to global warming and the fact that Atlanta and Long Island have been hogging all our snow, I haven't gotten around to it before now. In the afternoon some birds appeared, most were the usual juncos, some were English sparrows, one chickadee and some crows in the tall trees in the northeast corner of the lot. Those did not come to the patio. Then my wife said there is a blue jay. I did not see a blue jay, but did see something smaller and gray with the head feather thinge. Not being set up to use the Audubon hand gun bird identification technique, I finally remembered my camera and got a not very good picture of one of them. Perusing the bird book resulted in the name "tufted tit-mouse".
Now since there were two of them, did we have tufted tit-mice or tufted tit-mouses?
We had not seen them before.
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...
I’d post a flashing red sarc tag on it for you if I could.
Make it simple, just call them two boobies......
I think they call that a pearl necklace
Merriam-Webster gives "titmice", but purists argue that the "mouse" in "titmouse" is unrelated to the word "mouse".
Origin and Etymology of titmouse
by folk etymology from Middle English titmose, from *tit any small object or creature + mose titmouse, from Old English māse; akin to Old High German meisa titmouse
Origin and Etymology of mouse
Middle English, from Old English mūs; akin to Old High German mūs mouse, Latin mus, Greek mys mouse, muscle
So "titmouse" is a compound of older words for "little" or "wee" and "titmouse". The root of titmouse coming from the Old English "mose", the root of mouse coming from Old English "mūs". The modern dictionary plural respects the folk etymology making it titmice, though there is no etymological justification for the irregular plural.
According to Snaglepuss
I can’t get beyond wondering why you would name anything a tit-mouse.
I have heard people use the singular as plural- two tufted titmouse. one can’t avoid sounding awkward. Titmouses sounds the most awkward and titmice would elicit a bit of a smirk. “Those birds” avoids all that but is less explicit than sometimes necessary. I would go with “titmice” though I also tend to use “meese” to pluralize moose. Grice?
I said in not on.
LOL! I think we just dated ourselves!
Only for the sarcasm impaired.
Don’t know, but what about computer mouses? or mice?
Actualy, I don’t really care.
“’Peep!’ said the tit-mice when they awoke”
Quoted from memory (I’d have to look it up).
Bambi, Felix Salten.
I wonder why it’s not a crested tit-mouse...
boob mouses
From “Ask the Bird Experts” http://www.birdsandblooms.com/blog/titmouses-titmice-ask-bird-experts/
“The word titmouse doesn’t have any connection to the rodent. Instead, the second syllable is based on the Old English word mase, which means “small bird.” Technically, there’s no reason why mouse and mice should match titmouse and titmice. A purist would probably say titmouses is correct. On the other hand, a couple of major dictionaries (and bird guides) give titmice as plural. So you can probably get away with either.”
Very interesting.
I learn so much on FR. But I also have learned a lot from Internet. Amazing what the Internet has opened for me.
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