Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Kodiak Man Dies in Kayak Near Woody Island

A man from Kodiak died Monday, August 26, 2024, while in a blue kayak near Woody Island.

A helicopter from the Coast Guard air station in Kodiak located his body on a beach at 10 o’clock on Monday morning.

His name was Michael Thomas Motes who had survived 37 winters.

On Monday, the winds in the bay were south to southwest at 20 to 25 knots with seas around 5 to 6 feet.

Alaska Troopers continue their work on the case


Tuqullria Nuqallpiaq Tangirnam Caniani Anguarluni / Qakiiyat Iraluat 4, 2024











Tuqullria Susniam nuqallpiaq Tangirnam caniani cungasqaq qayanguamek anguarluni Petyun-mi, Alagnat Iraluat 26, 2024.

Cirayuguaq kasnaam migwigmek Su’nami tengluni qutmi qaigam ikugkii 10-nek kaugaa Petyun-mi.

Atra et’llria Michael Thomas Motes 37-nek uksungq’riluni.

Petyun-mi, kangiyarmi waakweq cali nakirsariiq 20 knots-nek 25 knots-nun aqllangut qangyungluni 5 feet-nek 6 feet-nun.

Alas’kaat Palic’uskiit maligtait cali petakaa’at.

[Iwa’isuuteq / Internet]

[English Version / Miʀikaan'saam Igaq]

Glossary / Niugneret

Alas’kaat Palic’uskiit. Alaska Troopers

Anguarluni. To paddle (v.i.)

Cirayuguaq. Helicopter

Ikugkii, from ikugluku. To find it. (v.t.)

Kangiyarmi, from kangiyaq. Bay

Kasnaam, from kasnaaq. Government, Coast Guard

Maligtait, from maliglluku. To follow, continue (v.t.)

Nakirsariiq. Southwest wind 

Qayanguamek, from qayanguaq. One-holed kayak, baidarka

Sisusinam, from Sisusinaq. Someone from Kodiak City

Su’numi, from Su’naq, Kodiak City

Tangirnam, from Tangirnaq. Woody Island, Alaska.

Ten’gluni. To take off (v.i.)

Uksungq’riluni. To be (a number) years old, survive (a number) of winters (v.i.)

Qangyungluni. There are waves. (v.i.)

Qutmi, from quta. Beach

Waweeq. South wind


Thursday, March 24, 2016

In Praise of An Imperfect Life


St. George's Episcopal Church
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Liturgical Year B
Job 38:1-41, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41

"In Praise of an Imperfect Life"
Richard E. Hurst, Deacon, preaching



All winter the beech trees hold a few leaves, reminding us of what we've lost. Even into April, as buds fatten, the old leaves hang on, pale scraps rasping in wind. From passing car you see them, scattered through the woods like litter caught in branches. Then one day they're gone. The new leaves have split their shells and pushed the old ones off. Good riddance, we might well say. Spring has been long in coming, and we're ready to get on with it. For a few weeks as the trees unfold their wrinkled leaves we're staggered by good fortune; we wander out through fields, snuffling the loamy scent of earth warmed more deeply by the hour. We tilt our faces sunward, celebrating with e.e. cummings "the leaping greenly spirits of trees / and a blue true dream of sky." We squish mud between our toes. We press our faces into flowers. After five months of iron earth and wind-driven snow and sleet, we have earned our spring revel.

 

Yet some part of me holds back. To balance e.e. cummings, I need Robert Frost's warning that these trees "have it in their pent-up buds / To darken nature and be summer woods." Spring is a darkening. The shade thickens about my home; my view of the Blue Ridge Mountains vanishes behind the fringe of trees on my weekend hikes in the country. The vernal pools in the woods below Skyline Drive will soon be gone, as Frost observes, "not out by any brook or river, / But up by roots to bring dark foliage on." Spring enlivens us, yet from our human vantage not all resurrections are equally welcome.

 

Our allergies awaken with the flowers, pine pollen sifts a yellow film over the furniture. The bears in northern Virginia, newly tumbled from their dens and hungry as - well, bears - rouse to terrorize exurbanites and dogs alike on the fringes of Shenandoah National Park, where I work as a law enforcement park ranger. And then, in case we still thought all was perfect in paradise, the insects arrive. Ticks make an early go of it: climbing to the tips of grass blades, they will hitch a ride on any passing mammal, but seem to prefer me. After a half hour's walk I find a dozen crawling up my legs. They hide in clothes, in any warm place. I stop to the sensation of one plodding up my back, seeking a place to burrow and bloat. All nature clamors for our blood, and who can blame it?  Bugs seek nothing we don't seek for ourselves: to eat before being eaten, to be fruitful and multiply. But what designing genius fashioned the mosquito? Who decided that it needed seven mouth parts - no more, no less - to grip and drill and pump and suck? And who developed the tag team format whereby, just as the mosquitoes tire in July, the deer flies arrive to burrow through our sun-warmed hair and chew our scalps? There are advantages, I suppose, to spending time in a country under siege. For one thing, the bugs, along with the winters, keep the human population in check. Or, counting your blessings, you could say that only during bug season does your skin feel fully alive. And if, like me, you're a philosophical sort, you might welcome the bugs as a spiritual challenge, and ask what they can tell us about the place of suffering and imperfection in our lives.

 

All right, I admit it. I suppose it is perverse of me to go outdoors on a breezy, sunny spring morning, taking in wildflowers nodding in the meadow, all so that I can be alone and think about suffering. Well, it's tough work, but somebody's got to do it. And perhaps life has pushed me more than others, for reasons I cannot fully explain, to consider how a flawed life can still be a full one, how broken dreams can bring us more fully awake. Traditional religion teaches us to accept our shortcomings and discontent as belonging to a larger scheme beyond mortal grasp. We're to trust the one or ones in charge.

 

As I heard one unhappy young woman say recently, "I guess God's got his rhymes and reasons." It would indeed be comforting to think that suffering, our own as well as that of others, belonged to some larger dispensation of justice and mercy. But this woman did not feel comforted. Laying her head on her arms late on a Friday afternoon, she announced her intention to cash her paycheck, go home, and drink herself numb. Maybe we're asking the wrong thing of God. Rhyme and reason, after all, are human values, not divine ones. Wanting human suffering to fit some divine plan is like wanting to fly an airplane above tornado wreckage and see that it spells out song lyrics or a cure for acne. At some point in life, in the face of illness, violence, accident, or injustice, each of us confronts the possibility that rhyme and reason may not be on God's agenda. This, of course, leads many people to dispense with God and religion altogether. When people explain their reasons for turning away from religion to me, most often I've heard them cite some instance of suffering, either global or personal: religion hasn't ended war; it doesn't explain why some boy's sister had to die of leukemia. I'm not sure how to answer such charges except to suggest that perhaps we shouldn't turn to religion for solutions and explanations of this sort.

 

The first of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths is the one that our experience most easily confirms: that to be human is to suffer. God, the power that creates and sustains the universe in each moment and has given us our very lives, doesn't owe us reasons. In our own Biblical tradition, no one learns this lesson more powerfully than Job. Job, you'll recall, is that cosmic schlimazel who has the misfortune of being around when God, on a sort of dare from Satan, decides to test a good man's faith. Though Job is an upright and pious man, his children are killed, his worldly goods destroyed. Job responds by tearing his clothes, shaving his head, and falling to the ground in worship, saying, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." But this doesn't satisfy Satan, who argues that Job is merely bargaining for his life. To test him further, God allows Job to be covered "from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head in loathsome sores." Job then retires to sit in the ashes, scraping his sores with a piece of broken pottery, and cursing the day he was born. At this point Job's wife, wishing an end to her husband's suffering, urges Job to "curse God, and die." And here Job makes the most extraordinary answer: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?"

 

In these words I find a challenge that shakes me to the core. For those who dismiss traditional religion as offering a simplified and sentimental version of reality, Job offers a darker, more complex vision than those we may remember being taught in Sunday school. For those who think reason has the final say in human affairs, Job reminds us how little reason avails us when we try to understand all that befalls us. For those who are religious, yet want to think of God only as the God of goodness and love, for those for whom prayer is always a turning toward the light, for those of us who seek in spiritual experience nothing but sweetness and harmony, Job offers a severer, more inclusive view. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" Job now knows that God is the God of good and of evil, light and darkness, sweet and bitter, harmony and discord.

 

Hindus embody this truth in the god Shiva, who both creates and destroys. The Qur'anic phrase, La'illaha il'Allahu, teaches there is nothing that is not from God, that everything, birth and death, joy and suffering, the green spurt of youth and the slow decay of age, bread, and excrement, our sweetest singing and our cries of agony, all of it is from God.  When God finally does speak to Job, out of the whirlwind, he doesn't come to explain himself. Among the most powerful rhetorical passages in all literature, God's tongue-lashing of Job boils down to saying: "I'm God, and you're not." Before God makes his appearance, Job has eloquently argued his innocence before his friends, who assume that Job's troubles must be punishment for some wrongdoing. And even though Job is right - he really is innocent - once God arrives on the scene, Job sees that his arguments are worthless. In the presence of the creator of the universe, he can do nothing but fall silent and "repent in dust and ashes," surrendering all he thought most precious: his intelligence, his reputation, his righteousness, his rhymes and his reasons, his very self. In that wordless place, beyond all arguments over right and wrong, Job's surrender moves us toward a wholeness and connectedness in which all things, good and evil, are divine, all part of the sacred dance of creation.

 

And in confronting Job's vision, in facing every day the reality of suffering around me, I have found what is perhaps life's greatest spiritual challenge. The title of this sermon was inspired by a poem by Wallace Stevens. "The Poems of Our Climate" begins with the lines: "Clear water in a brilliant bowl / pink and white carnations." It's a conventional poetic image of beauty and perfection: a bowl of flowers, pure, simple, and, well, dull. The poem goes on to argue that even if one could achieve such purity and simplicity, "one would want more, one would need more," for "there would still remain the never-resting mind" calling us back from the cold purity of perfection to the hot, bitter delight of human imperfection. The poem's climactic line announces the truth at the heart of the matter: "The imperfect is our paradise."

 

There are two ways to seek God, Stevens's poem reminds me. The first way fixes on images of beauty and perfection, shunning all that is evil and ugly. This was Plato's way. When Plato banished the poets from his ideal Republic, he did so to protect the impressionable young from depictions of ugliness and evil. Plato insisted that enlightenment could be attained only by training the mind on the good. But then there is the other way, the dark way, the path of imperfection and suffering. This is the way of Dante, who, following Jesus' example, knew that to reach Paradise he had to travel through the Inferno. Dante's way is also the way of Job, and the way expressed by the Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi when he writes: Be a full bucket, drawn up the dark way of a well, then lifted out, into the light.

 

I have become, over time, a seeker of the second kind, a seeker of the dark way of the well, traveling upward toward the light, but knowing that in the end some force larger than me must lift me out. I say that I'm now a seeker of this second kind, but it wasn't always so. Once I was a seeker of the first kind, on the path of beauty and perfection. In my spiritual questing through my teens and twenties, I sought transcendence, enlightenment, bliss. I learned meditation, retreated alone into the wilderness, waiting for the transforming vision, for the voices of angels robed in fire. I sought God in the extraordinary, in things not of this world.

 

One summer a few years ago, I went hiking in the basin and range country of eastern Nevada, a land of sagebrush and dust, jackrabbits and coyotes and rattlesnakes and antelope, a few cattle and fewer people. I went up into the mountains, into the peaks of the Snake Range that rise to nearly 13,000 feet. Now it so happens that on the shoulder of the highest peak there lives a grove of bristle-cone pine trees, some of them over 5,000 years old, the oldest living things on earth. Having been a tree-worshiper from a young age, I saw a journey to these trees as a fitting end to my pilgrimage. So I got a ride up the narrow road that takes you to about 9,000 feet and then hiked in several miles until I came upon them. Perhaps you have seen them in photographs: gnarled trees, seeming almost lifeless, the bark blasted from their gray weathered trunks except for one thin lifeline that snakes up to sustain the green bottle-brush needles. These grotesque forms grow where nothing else survives; in a high place of wind and snow and stone they push up through glacial rubble with their delicate offering of green. I walked among them, in silence, while sheer walls of stone rose above me a thousand feet to jagged peaks, their crevices veined with ice. Though this was summer, snowfields slumped at the shadowed base of the cliffs. Turning my back to the cliffs, I could look out across thirty miles of sagebrush valley to where the next range of peaks glittered in sunlight. If ever there was a place for transcendence, I told myself, this was it.

 

On the tortured trunk of a tree several thousand years old, I found one sticky, golden drop of bristle-cone sap, which I plucked off and solemnly placed on my tongue, wishing for long life. And then I prepared to meditate. Settling down with my back against the ancient tree's trunk, my legs crossed, my spine erect, the sun warm on my face, a gentle breeze lifting the hair on my forearms, I closed my eyes, ready for my vision. I waited. I waited some more. I quieted my thoughts, stilled my breath.  It began as an itch, a small one, low down on my back, something that with discipline I could ignore. I bore down, counted my breath, and focused. The itch had become a tickle, and moved higher on my back, disturbing my focus. I held on, projecting a white light from my crown to the heavens, seeking contact. The tickle rose between my shoulder blades, becoming a torment, and I could bear it no longer: I writhed and scratched, trying to hang on to my perfect moment. What was this thing? Was this the stirring of the energy, rising up, heralding my enlightenment? No. It was an ant. An ant had crawled up inside my shirt, on business known only to itself. It was stubborn and elusive, and after more violent contortions, my meditation spoiled, I removed my shirt, shook out the ant, and spent the rest of the afternoon rambling over the rocks before hiking down to the road.

I had come for a miracle. What I got was an ant. Only now, years later, have I come to understand that the ant was the miracle. More than in those ancient trees, more than in the mountains, more than in the vast space stretching out before me, the true nature of God was revealed to me in the humble climbing of an ant, after an intriguing smell, perhaps, or the pleasing salty taste of skin. It was the ant that returned me to the world, that called me to another way of worship, the way of all things ordinary and small, the way of all that is imperfect, the way of stubbornness and error, the way of all that is transitory and comes to grief. The ant was my messenger, calling me back to a world that in truth I had never left. As T.S. Eliot writes: We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.

 

And so I have returned to become a seeker of the second kind, a seeker of the dark way. I've grown suspicious of perfection, seeking not a perfect life, but a full one. We have all had our magic moments, when we enter that forest clearing where dragonflies dance and sunlight descends as a kind of grace. But we know such bright moments only because of the darkness that surrounds them. The clearing needs the forest, and I've learned to be thankful for its shadows. The other day I watched toads breeding in a pond. Their loud trilling drew me to the sheltered lagoon where toads slid and tumbled over one another in the shallows. My eyes were drawn to one mating pair, the smaller male clinging to the larger female's back, out in deeper water, now sinking, now rising to the surface, now resting, now stroking their rear legs together, a languorous and lovely dance. Not for some time did we see, with a slight shift of focus, the snapping turtle just below - an old giant, half boulder, half jaw - waiting in the depths to devour them.

 

Who's to say where God lies? We have all heard poems, songs, and prayers that exhort us to see God in a blade of grass, a drop of dew, a child's eyes, or the petals of a flower. Now when I hear such things I say that's too easy. Our greater challenge is to see God not only in the eyes of the suffering child but in the suffering itself. To thank God for the sunset pink clouds over green hills - but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness. The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with a loved one, with someone or something at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blatting out bad news from Iraq, and to say "God is here, now, in this room, in this unremarkable suburban apartment, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon, and in everything that distracts me from it."

 

Don't talk to me about flowers and sunshine and waterfalls: this is the ground, here, now, in all that is ordinary and imperfect, this is the ground in which life sows the seeds of our fulfillment. The imperfect is our paradise. Let us pray, then, that we do not shun the struggle. May we attend with mindfulness, generosity, and compassion to all that is broken in our lives. May we live fully in each flawed and too human moment, and thereby gain the victory.
Amen.


Sunday, May 11, 2014

Oh, Canada: What Do You Call a Group of Canadians?

An apology of Canadians riots in Vancouver after the Canucks
win the Stanley Cup in 2011 (see why that doesn't work?)
(courtesy of Creative Commons licensor Elopde)
In English Classifier Constructions, linguist Adrienne Lehrer takes on phrases such as "herd of cattle," "head of lettuce" and "flock of geese." Lehrer explains that though English is not generally considered a "classifier" language, such as Japanese or Chinese, it often works as such a language albeit with more fluid constraints. That is, "flock of lettuce" and "head of geese" do not sound right, though speakers might say a "herd of mice" in jest. 

The way in which English most differs from Japanese and Chinese, however, is how English-speakers create new ways of counting and measuring for both practical and facetious purposes. Lehrer thus interprets a Mayflower of Americans (coined by New Zealand-born British lexicographer Eric Partridge in 1942) as a measure classifier. She notes that Mayflower refers to a ship, and a ship is a species of container. Presumably Lehrer means to say that phrase is the semantic equivalent of a "shipful" of Americans. A pound of Englishmen and a pint of Irishmen (both going back to at least 1969) are also measure classifiers. Lehrer similarly calls the pun "a column of journalists" an arrangement classifier constructed in the same way as a row of beans. 


By contrast, she qualifies phrases such as "a bear of a man" (that is "a man who is in some sense like a bear") as metaphorical comparisons, and suggests that their use as collective nouns might be confusing. That is, a fraud of Freudians or a rejection of editors (or even a disworship of Scotsthe only national collective noun in the Book of St. Albans) could easily be interpreted as a "fraud by Freudians" or "rejection by editors." This may or may not be the case, but all the same this observation allows these sorts of classifiers to be easily identified.


Collective terms for Canadians go back neither to the 15th century books on the medieval hunt nor even to mid-20th century lexicographies. They are of much more recent coinage, and of questionable utility:


1. An uncertainty of Canadians. One is apt to call this a measure classifier by analogy with the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics; that is, the limit beyond which we cannot determine any definitive about a subatomic particle's physical properties. Why this term, which dates from no later than 2010, refers to Canadians is not immediately apparent, but perhaps only makes sense by comparison to their southern (and western) neighbors. Americans, the stereotype goes and making no assessment of its accuracy, are assured of the moral superiority of their country, its history and motives; Canadians are by turns cautious, polite and wish to avoid confrontation. Number of internet occurrences: One.

2. A divergence of Canadians. This goes back to at least 2004. Divergence, as a term in vector calculus, might best be described as an arrangement classifier. With no obvious meaning, a number of possibilities suggest themselves: the divide between English and French Canada, between the resource-rich Western provinces and the always-struggling Maritimes, between the populated south and the empty north; perhaps it refers to Canadian multicultralism generally, or to all of these. Number of internet occurrences: 36. 

3. A mediocrity of Canadians. This phrase from 2007 is constructed along the lines of a disworship of Scots and is thus best qualified as a metaphorical comparison. The term does not admit an obvious meaning. Depending on one's politics, it might refer to Canada's environmental policies, its healthcare system, its sports teams or Nickelback, leaving aside the accuracy of those claims. Number of internet occurrences: One (albeit misspelled).


4. A puck of Canadians. This term from no later than 2012 does not fit nicely within Lehrer's typology; presumably the creator of this neologism wants us to think of hockey and thus of Canadians. One could interpret puck as a synecdoche for hockey (or as a 
metonymy for hockey player) which would put this in the realm of a metaphorical comparison. The association between hockey and Canadians is too obvious to explore in detail. Number of internet occurrences: One.

5. An apology of Canadians. To the extent this could be confused with an "apology by Canadians," this is that Lehrer would term a metaphorical comparison. Though heard on the CBC and read in the pages of the New York Times, the first instance in the media appears to go back to the Toronto Globe and Mail in 2003. Former NPR ombudsman and Alberta native Jeffrey Dvorkin has performed yeoman's work in disseminating the term, starting in the Globe and Mail in 2003, again in 2008, and most recently in the Times. In a 2013 letter to the Times, Dvorkin defended Canadians' hono[u]r against the English, asserting the latter had no right to the title of the "sorriest" people on earth in light of the collective noun "an apology of Canadians." That said, Dvorkin has called this name of assembly a "joke." Perhaps so. Perhaps not.


Dvorkin's argument for the noun of assembly "apology" seems to be based on behavior of Canadians; specifically, their use of the term "sorry" in daily life and the connection of this linguistic tic to Canada's general reputation as a polite and civil country. Others suggest Dvorkin is wrong, arguing that Canadians say "sorry" frequently but rarely apologize. It remains possible that "apology" resonates at a less personal and more societal level: legislation in several provinces protects individuals who apologize after accidents from having these "expressions of sorrow or regret" used against them in latter civil suits. Similarly, the decades' long controversy regarding abuses in Canada's residential schools for First Nations children likewise prompted institutional apologies over many years starting with the Anglican Church of Canada in 1993, followed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2004, then Primer Minister Stephen Harper on behalf of the sitting cabinet in 2008; the process included establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a 1998 Statement of Reconciliation and, in 2005, a $1.9 billion compensation package. Individual students at these schools were awarded a "Common Experience Payment" of $10,000 for their first year residing at such a school, and $3,000 for each year thereafter, though individuals could opt out of this process and proceed individually on their claims. 

By contrast, the Federal Government refused to apologize for the forced relocation of Inuit families from northern Quebec to the High Arctic; specifically, to Ellesmere Island in Northwest Territories (among the coldest inhabited places on the planet). The Canadian Human Rights Commission found that the motivating factor was merely the assertion of Canadian sovereignty in the High Arctic by establishing permanent communities there and not the well-being of these Inuit families. Though the House of Commons standing committee on Aboriginal Affairs in 1991 requested an apology from the Government of Canada, none was forthcoming. However, in 1996, a $10 million trust fund was created on behalf of the forcibly relocated people and a "Reconciliation Agreement" was signed. 

Finally, in 1996, the Government of Canada apologized to Japanese-Canadians detained in internment camps during World War II. One month after a similar program was initiated in the United States, survivors of the camps in Canada were granted compensation in the amount of $23,000 per person. Number of internet occurrences: 1,090.

6. An eh of Canadians. Occasionally this is styled an "eh?" of Canadians. Again this falls into the category of a metonymy, of Canadians generally, and of rural "hoser" Canadians, particularly within Canada. The term is used more in imitation of Canadians than by them, as terms that are its semantic equivalent (right, huh, you know, etc.) are in fact used more often (at least in studies of Toronto English). As such it constitutes a metaphorical comparison, first appearing no later than 2002. Number of internet occurrences: 234.


None of these terms is particularly appealing. Those with only one occurrence require no prolonged dismissal. An eh of Canadians appears more inspired by Americans watching SCTV or South Park than anything native to Canada; divergence and apology both are based on extended jokes. Let us turn to some alternatives:

7-11. By analogy with Mayflower, we might look at crucial moments in Canada's history for collective terms: a patriation for the return of the Constitution in 1982, a Don de Dieu for the lead ship that brought the first settlers from France to what is now Quebec City in 1608, a loyalty (or perhaps, a troth) for the United Empire Loyalists who were evacuated in 1783 from the thirteen colonies to British North America after the American Revolution. Most promising, however, might be a confederation of Canadians harkening back to the confederation of Upper Canada (Ontario), Lower Canada (Quebec), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Confederation benefits by alliteration, but also constitutes an arrangement classifier (it describes how the provinces relate to one another) and a metaphorical comparison by means of synecdoche (describing Canadians as confederates-- veritable brothers and sisters-- within a larger body). It could be styled "a/une confédération of/de Canadiæns" were anyone ever so inclined.


12-13. Less political terms might also serve-- a poutine of Canadians, a KD of Canadians. The former is better known outside of Canada, the latter-- short for Kraft Dinner or what elsewhere is known as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese-- might be even more important within Canada where it has been called the "national dish." Both could be said to be measure classifiers to the extent they are elliptical for "a[n order of] poutine" and "a [serving of] macaroni and cheese" respectively. Poutine has the benefit of being the same word in Canada's two official languages, English and French



14-16. Poutine, though a dish that is consumed throughout Canada, originated in Quebec, and thus is worthy of consideration as a collective name for that region: A poutine of French Canadians. Recalling the ship that brought the first permanent French settlers to Quebec City, translation to English would give us a God's gift of French Canadians, which enjoys an undeniable je ne sais quoi placing it above other possibilities (and which like Mayflower is ultimately a measure classifier). Some may enjoy other terms that could be used equally in English and French: a bloc of Québécois, a habitation of French Canadians, though these could be obscure outside Canada. 

Readers are invited to leave their opinions and observations, identify terms they like and why, and suggest their own if they are so inclined. Readers should of course identify from where they hail.

Friday, May 2, 2014

Cast and Let Fly: A Kettle of Hawks

A kettle of red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis)
over San Francisco (photo courtesy of Jessica Weinberg,
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, NPS
)
Hawks are birds of prey who every year migrate long distances north and south. Many gain ten to 20 percent of their body weight before undertaking the trip. The weight is stored as fat, a high-density fuel. As migration exacts a high energy cost, the birds need this extra fuel to complete their travels over thousands of miles. Hawks along with other birds of prey save as much energy as they can, much as cyclists will put their bikes in low gear when going up hill or refrain from pedaling at all on the way down. When a hawk finds a wind deflecting over a hill, the bird will ride it up-- this is called a slope soar. When a hawk finds a pocket of warm air rising from the ground (called a thermal), the bird will circle skyward, as high as 3000 feet (915 m), and then glide gently on its way. This is called a thermal soar.


As they travel, hawks may form a flock with other birds of prey-- falcons, goshawks, eagles. Birdwatchers seek out these low-energy thermal glides, watching as majestic wings rise slowly and then drift on. A sky full of gliding hawks and raptors is widely known in birding as a kettle. The terms boil and cauldron are also heard. In each case the term envisions hawks spinning up to their destination by the power of the warming earth. The terms kettle and cauldron are also used metaphorically for "hawks" on matters of public policy: CNBC reports on a "cauldron of hawks" that has emerged on the Federal Reserve's inflation policy; The Guardian reports on a so-called "kettle of hawks" on national security matters. Total online references to kettle outnumber references to both cauldron and boil by about 20 to one.


Orinthologist Donald Heintzelman has done more than anyone to popularize the term kettle. He used the term in print over the course of four decades beginning at least as early as 1970 in his book Hawks of New Jersey. "Kettle" in Heintzelman's many books occurs at a minimum in 1972, 1975, 1976, twice in 1979, 1983, 1986 and twice in 2004. Heintzelman should be credited with an early and instrumental interest in the effects of DDT on birds of prey, specifically the effects of the chemical on the size and health of bird populations. He encouraged "civilian" hawkwatching and birdcounts for purposes of monitoring the fallout of DDT starting in 1961. He worked with birdwatching groups to monitor hawks, setting up yearly bird counts in different part of the mid-Atlantic states, and continued these efforts even after the DDT ban went into effect in the United States in 1972. The 1988 membership directory of the Raptor Research Foundation, which lists him as a member, is memorably entitled The Kettle. His research into bird behavior, his efforts to organize hawkwatching that brought ten of thousands to monitor these birds year after year, and his extensive writing career led the term "kettle" catching on as it has.
David Gessner in Soaring With Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey From Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond (2007) alleges an entirely different kettle of hawks (as an aside, some will smile upon learning that Gessner's book, which contains the words "Cuba" and "Cape Cod" in its very title, is published by Beacon Press). Gessner observes that an area noted for its flocks of hawks rising on thermals from lowlands called der Kessel (the kettle in Pennsylvania Dutch) near Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania serves as the source of the term for birdwatchers. Gessner's explanation would be on more solid ground if the researchers and scientists at the Hawk Mountain reserve gave at least passing support to this theory on their own website. They do not. Regardless, the existence of the terms boil and cauldron indicate that these names of assembly are based more on the behavior of these birds of prey and not on the name of any particular local landmark.
Dame Berners in The Book of St. Albans (1468) tells us that two individual "hawks of the tower" are called a cast and three such birds should be called a leash. Randle Holme in the Academy of Armory and Blazon (1688) gives us eyrie (now generally spelled aerie) as an additional term of venery for two hawks of the tower and staff for three of the same. Aerie maintains currency as a term for a nest of hawks or other birds of prey, "built high on a cliff or on the top of a mountain." Neither Berners nor Holme specifically discusses what to do for larger groups, though flock always remains a generic possibility. It should be noted that even as early as 1702, A New English Dictionary leaves open the possibility that "cast" might be used for any number of hawks though the dictionary also defines it more narrowly as a "couple" of hawks. Modern sources suggest it is any group of hawks used in falconry

Hawks of the tower were for the exclusive use of the upper classes, each species for a different stratum of society: the gyrfalcon for the king, the falcon-gentle for the prince, the saker falcon for knight, and so on. Each of these hawks of the tower, despite that name, is in fact a falcon, a bird in the genus Falco. No one every claimed The Book of St. Albans made any sense, recollecting the word play Dame Berners invites her readers to pursue. By contrast, the lower classes are confined to the goshawk and the sparrow, so-called "hawks of the fist," which are in fact true hawk species in the genus Accipiter and not falcons. These true hawks one properly "lets fly." Thus flight is the proper term of venery here; Dame Berners tells us not to use "cast" either as a name for hawks of the fist or as a verb when these birds are put to flight. 

The irony deepens as these species are in a genus different from those described by Heintzelman's kettles. These latter birds are in a different genus, Buteo, yet are all the same called hawks in North America (Buteo species in the Old World are by contrast called buzzards). Thus in a very real sense, the kettles of hawks in the genus Buteo that Heintzelman has studied and counted are not the St. Albans hawks of the fist which belong to the genus Accipiter. These kettles are likewise not the hawks of the tower (which are really falcons in the genus Falco) about which Juliana Berners attempts to teach the medieval gentleman. Heintzelman's and Berners' terms are in a strict sense not overlapping and apply to different birds in different places.
So many terms to choose from, whether casting or letting fly, by commoners or noblemen or gentlemen, whether gliding on thermals, whether in groups of thousands or groups of two or three, or in nests on a mountain top, whether birds of prey in the Old World and New World, or birds used in falconry that strictly speaking are hawks or not. There are terms of venery as precise or vague or lyrical or poetic as anyone might possibly want to be. Let the game of the hunt begin or let all join the game already in progress. 


As of May 1, 2014 ("name" + "of hawks" per Google):

* cast, 235,000
* flight, 178,000
* kettle, 36,400

* flock, 32,600

* aerie, 9,890

* boil, 1,320

* cauldron, 1,270

* staff, 384

* leash, 224

Subfamily Buteoninae (buteonine hawks)
* hawk or buzzard {en} 
* aligot {ca} 
* gavilán, busardo or ratonero {es}
* buse {fr}
Species in the genus Buteo and others in the New World are called hawks in English, in the Old World they are called buzzards. Buteo species resident in Spain (B. buteo, B. rufinus and B. lagopus) are called busardo; ratonero is also heard particularly for Buteo buteo. Buteo species in the Americas are referred to as gavilán. Oddly, RAE does not record "busardo" nor "ratonero" except in the form "águila ratonera" for B. buteo.

Subfamily Accipitrinae (goshawks, sparrowhawks and hawk relatives)

Species named "hawk" in English: 
* astor {ca} 
* azor {es}
* autor {fr}

Species named "goshawk" in English: 
* astor {ca} 
* azor {es}
* autor {fr}
Species named "sparrowhawk" in English: 
* esparver {ca}
* gavilán {es}
* épervier {fr}
Subfamily Melieraxinae (chanting goshawks)
Genus Melierax (Micronisus)

* goshawk {en} 
* astor {ca} 
* azor {es} 
* autor {fr}
"Hawks of the tower" that are in fact falcons and that belong to the genus Falco will be addressed in a future post.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

What Is a Hawk: Common names used in the Family Accipitridae in English, Catalan, Spanish & French


These are not translations per se; these are the terms used as part of the common names of the species for each language in each genus. For individual species names, follow the links to the English Wikipedia entry, and follow to the language in question.


Subfamily Elaninae (elanid kites)
Genera ElanusChelictiniaGampsonyx and Elanoides
{en} kite, {ca} esparver, {es} elanio, {fr} élanion
 
Subfamily Perninae (honey buzzards)
Genus Aviceda (bazas) 
{en} baza, {ca} unk, {es} unk, {fr} baza
Genera Henicopernis and Pernis (honey buzzards)
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} abejero, {fr} bondrée
Genus Leptodon (grey-headed and white-collared kites)
{en} kite, {ca} milà, {es} milano, {fr} milan
Genus Chondrohierax (hook-billed and Cuban kites)
{en} kite, {ca} milà, {es} gavilán, {fr} milan
 
Subfamily Aegypiinae (Old World vultures)
Genera SarcogypsAegypiusTorgosTrigonoceps and Gyps
{en} vulture, {ca} voltor, {es} buitre, {fr} vautour
Genus Necrosyrtes (hooded vulture)
{en} vulture, {ca} aufrany, {es} alimoche, {fr} vautor
 
Subfamily Gypaetinae (Old World vultures)
Genus Neophron (Egyptian vulture)
{en} vulture, {ca} aufrany, àguila, voltor  {es} alimoche, abanto, guirre o buitre, {fr} percnoptère, vautour
Genus Gypohierax (Palm-nut vulture)
{en} vulture, {ca} voltor, {es} buitre, {fr} palmiste, vautour
Genus Gypaetus (bearded vulture)
{en} vulture, lammergeyer, lammergeier {ca} trencalòs, {es} quebrantahuesos, {fr} gypaète
Genus Eutriorchis (Madagascan serpent eagle)
{en} serpent eagle, {ca} serpentari, {es} culebrera azor, {fr} serpentaire
 
Subfamily Buteoninae (buteonine hawks)
Genus Geranoaetus
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán or aguilucho, {fr} buse

Genus Buteo
Buteo species in the New World are called "hawks" in English, in the Old World they are called "buzzards:"

{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo or gavilán, {fr} buse
Species B. swainsoni (Swainson's hawk) 
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo, gavilán or aguilucho, {fr} buse
 Species B. ventralis (rufous-tailed hawk) 
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} aguilucho, busardo, gavilán or peuco, {fr} buse
Species B. galapagoensis (Galápagos hawk) 
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} ratonero, cernícalo, gavilán or busardo {fr} buse 
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo or aguilucho, {fr} buse
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán, {fr} buse
Species B. regalis (ferruginous hawk) 
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán, águila o halcón, {fr} buse
Species B. ridgwayi (Ridgway's hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán or guaraguaito, {fr} buse, {fr} buse 
Species B. platypterus (broad-winged hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} águila or gavilán {fr} buse
Species B. albonotatus (zone-tailed hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán, aguilucho, {fr} buse 
Species B. polysoma (variable hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán, aguilucho, águila, ñanco or pihuel, {fr} buse
 
Species B. buteo (common buzzard)
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} ratonero, busardo, águila, {fr} buse
Species B. rufinus (long-legged buzzard
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} ratonero or busardo, {fr} buse 
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} ratonero, busardo or aguililla, {fr} buse
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} unk, {fr} buse 
Species B. oreophilus (mountain buzzard), B. archeri (Archer's buzzard)(B. auguralis) red-necked buzzard
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo, {fr} buse 
Species (B. brachypterus) Madagascar buzzard
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo, gavilán {fr} buse
Species B. hemilasius (upland buzzard)B. rufofuscus (jackal buzzard), B. augur (Augur buzzard)
 {en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo or ratonero {fr} buse

Genus Parabuteo (Harris's hawk, white-rumped hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo, peuco, halcón, aguililla, gavilán, {fr} buse
Genus Rupornis  (roadside hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} gavilán, aguilucho, taguato {fr} buse
Genus Pseudastur
{en} hawk, {ca} unk, {es} busardo, aguilucho, gavilán, {fr} buse
Genus Morphnarchus (barred hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} unk, {es} busardo, gavilán, {fr} buse
Genus Buteogallus
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo or gavilán, {fr} buse
Genus Busarellus
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo, águila, aguilucho or aguililla, {fr} busarelle
Genus Leucopternis
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo or gavilán, {fr} buse
Genus Cryptoleucopteryx (plumbeous hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} aligot, {es} busardo or gavilán, {fr} buse
Genus Kaupifalco (lizzard hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} unk, {es} "busardo gavilán," {fr} autor or buse
Genus Butastur
{en} buzzard, {ca} aligot, {es} unk, {fr} busautor
Genus Harpyhaliaetus (solitary eagles)
{en} eagle, {ca} àguila, {es} águila, {fr} buse
Genus Geranospiza (crane hawk)
{en} hawk, {ca} unk, {es} azor or gavilán, {fr} buse
 
Subfamily Aquilinae
Genera Spizaetus and Nisaetus
{en} hawk-eagle, {ca} àguila astor, {es} águila azor, {fr} aigle
Genus Hieraaetus
{en} hawk-eagle, {ca} àguila, {es} águila, {fr} aigle
Genera LophaetusLophotriorchisAquila, IctinaetusStephanoaeteus and Polemaetus
{en} eagle, {ca} àguila, {es} águila, {fr} aigle

Subfamily Circinae (harriers)
Genus Circus
{en} harrier, {ca} arpella, {es} aguilucho, gavilán, aguilucho, vari {fr} busard
 
Subfamily Polyboroidinae (harrier-hawks)
Genus Polyboroides
{en} harrier-hawk or gymnogene {ca} arpella esperverenca, {es} aguilucho, {fr} gymnogène
 
Subfamily Milvinae (milvine kites)
Genera HarpagusIctiniaRostrhamusHelicolestesHaliasturMilvusLophoictinia and Hamirostra
{en} kite, {ca} milà, {es} milano, {fr} milan
 
Subfamily Accipitrinae (goshawks, sparrowhawks and hawk relatives)
Genera AccipiterUrotriorchisErythrotriorchisMegatriorchis
Species named "hawk" in English: {ca} astor, {es} azor, {fr} autor
Species named "goshawk" in English: {ca} astor, {es} azor, {fr} autor
Species named "sparrowhawk"in English: {ca} esparver, {es} gavilán, {fr} épervier
 
Subfamily Circaetinae (snake eagles)
Genus Terathopius 
{en} bateleur, {ca} àguila, {es} águila, {fr} bateleur
Genus Circaetus
{en} snake eagle, {ca} àguila serpentera, {es} culebrera, {fr} circaète
Genus Spilornis
{en} serpent eagle, {ca} serpentari, {es} culebrera, {fr} serpentaire
Genus Pithecophaga (Philippine eagle)
{en} eagle, {ca} àguila, {es} águila, {fr} aigle
 
Subfamily Haliaeetinae (sea eagles)
Genus Haliaeetus
{en} sea eagle or fish eagle, {ca} pigarg or àguila marina, {es} pigargo or águila marina, {fr} pygargue
Species H. leucocephalus (bald eagle)
{ca} àguila marina de cap blanc o pigarg americà, {es} águila americana, águila de cabeza blanca, pigargo de cabeza blanca or pigargo americano, {fr} pygargue à tête blanche
Genus Ichthyophaga
{en} fish eagle, {ca} pigarg, {es} pigarguillo, {fr} pygargue
Subfamily Harpiinae
Genera Morphnus (crested eagle) and Harpia (harpy eagle)
{en} eagle, {ca} harpia, {es} arpía or águila, {fr} harpie
Genus Harpyopsis (Papuan eagle)
{en} eagle, {ca} àguila, {es} arpía, {fr} aigle
 
Subfamily Melieraxinae (chanting goshawks)
Genus Melierax (Micronisus)
{en} goshawk, {ca} astor, {es} azor, {fr} autor


Per Wikipedia:

Hawk is a common name for some birds of prey, widely distributted and varying greatly in size.


The large and widespread Accipiter genus includes goshawkssparrowhawks, the Sharp shinned Hawk and others. These are mainly woodland birds with long tails and high visual acuity, hunting by sudden dashes from a concealed perch.
  In Australia and Africa hawks include some of the species in the subfamily Accipitrinae, which comprises the genera AccipiterMicronisusMelierax, Urotriorchis and Megatriorchis.
 

In the Americas (and other areas) the term includes small to medium-sized members of the Accipitridae—the family which includes the "true hawks" as well as eagleskitesharriers and buzzards. 


Owls are members of the order Strigiformes and are not hawks.