Re: Common Names

Syd Curtis wrote:
> 
> The purpose of language is to communicate.  Anyone for whom English is
> their native tongue has no difficulty coping with homonyms, determining
> from the context which meaning applies.  No confusion arises in Australia
> when one speaks of a Magpie and means the Australian bird...
> 
>and as ...for that ugly and unnatural modernism "Birds Australia" replacing 
>the almost century-old name of the organisation ... 


Hear, hear.  That's why we poms have no worries about omitting the name
of the country (England?, Great Britain??, United Kingdom???) from our
stamps and calling a 
Chough a Chough, a Blackbird a Blackbird, a Reed Warbler a Reed
Warbler...

And as for the "R" in RAOU - everyone one knows it means "Republic".


Michael Norris