The problem with "Willy Fantail" is that Willie Wagtail is is an inseparable
unit, being an Irish and Scots name for the Pied Wagtail along the lines of
Margaret Pie = Magpie, ie a personal name followed by the bird name.
If they want to rename it they have to recognise that the Willie part isn't an
adjective, and they need to find an adjective to go with Fantail that
distinguishes it from all the other Fantails, White-browed Fantail (for
example, from the scientific name).
John Leonard
> On 23 Jan 2017, at 6:10 PM, Tony Russell <> wrote:
>
> I think these would be "re-namers" are just blowing their own trumpets to
> gain a little notice. Forget it folks, keep using the names we all grew up
> with, we don't NEED any new names thank you academia.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of
> michael hunter
> Sent: 23 January 2017 16:57
> To:
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] names
>
>
> Once again a few academics, mostly not Australian, if not Un-Australian,
> are foisting otherworldly names onto us Aussie birders.
>
> Common names , NOT ENGLISH names, for Australian birds are names commonly
> used by about 99% of Australian birdwatchers for our birds. It is appalling
> that colourless English names like Black-necked Stork have been inflicted on
> us by a few pseudo-academics who are presumably incapable of memorising
> Scientific names. Jabiru may be the common name of a South American Stork,
> but changing the official “common” name for any birdwatcher witless enough to
> confuse the two in the field was an amazing arrogance. One justification was
> that people reading birdguides will be confused in not justified.
>
> These people are meddling with our Australian common names, which are , or
> were, spontaneous non-scientific vernacular.
> Among many examples, “Jabiru” and “Torres Straits Pigeon” had romantic (in
> the broad sense folks) connotations lost in the bland generics we are told to
> use instead. As a youth my first sighting of the legendary Jabiru was very
> exciting, and stimulated a life-long interest in Birding. Seeing a
> Black-necked Stork would not have.
>
> “Willy Fantail” They must be joking.
>
> Resist.
>
> Michael
>
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