Hello again, Julian. Re the below, anything you call them
is fine by me, but I think experience shows that it is better not to raise such
issues.
However, just in case it is important to you ...
First, ‘hobby’ is not a proper noun. Hence it
is ‘canaries’, ‘lories’ and ‘hobbies’.
The convention that is usually followed is so expressed in Fowler (2nd
ed):
“ ... when the y is preceded by a consonant the
plural is –ies. .... But proper names do not conform.
There are now two Germanys. / The three Marys at the crucifixion.
...”
Therefore it is ‘two Australian Hobbys’ but ‘two
hobbies’.
Insistence on capitalised ‘official’ names is a
source of confusion. Why should ‘cat’ and ‘dog’
be lower-case, but ‘Currawong’ and ‘Gang-gang’ be
upper-case? All are common nouns (unlike ‘Gang-gang Cockatoo’),
and there is no reason for the upper-case for any of the first four. Use
of the upper case signals that one is using an ‘official name’.
Thus: ‘I saw a black cockatoo, and a closer view showed that it was
a Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo.’
It should be ‘I saw a black duck, and a closer view showed
that it was a Pacific Black Duck.’ However, ‘Black Duck’
is still frequently seen, presumably used by persons who are expressing a
preference for an earlier ‘official name’.
Eponymous names present particular difficulties. It is a matter
of taste whether Lamingtons have gone the way of sandwiches and become
lamingtons. Failure to grasp that the King Parrot was named for Governor
King has led to the curious compound ‘King-Parrot’. Those who
prefer ‘lamington’ might well say: “The
Australian King-Parrot is larger than the king-parrot found in New Guinea”.
From: Julian Robinson
[
Sent: Friday, 27 April 2007 10:18 AM
To: Canberrabirds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Raptors on one leg
I think what I heard was about hobbys (what is the plural of
a proper name ending in 'y'? - hobbys or hobbies
