Re: FW: [canberrabirds] Canberra becoming superb parrot central for not-so-superb reasons - ABC News Canberra becoming superb parrot central for not-so-superb reasons - ABC News

[David Rees <>]

agreed

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:06 PM, Con Boekel <> wrote:

John

Having visited Chat Alley several times, and having stopped each time in the hopes of spying a chat, any chat, I feel confident about renaming it:

'Chatless Alley'

regards

Con

On 12/7/2017 4:57 PM, calyptorhynchus . wrote:

Around 1995-96 I was discussing a trip to Round Hill on the Birding-Was forum and said that a stretch of road on the way there was "Chat Alley" (from having seem orange and Crimson Chats there) and the name seems to have stuck.

Calling somewhere an alley is a way of describing a smaller area than calling somewhere a something-central. So I hope that Canberra, if it does come to that, is Superb Parrot Central and not Superb Parrot Alley.

John Leonard

On 7 December 2017 at 16:48, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

I am interested in the _expression_ ‘superb parrot central’ used in this report.  Was it used by Dr Rayner or are they the words of the journalist?

 

Users of this chatline might remember some years ago the words ‘finch central’ were used ( I think by Julian Robinson) to indicate a location where there happened to be quite a few finches around, and for a time the label attached itself to that location.  There was some discussion about the term that had, apparently, been coined at that time.  I think Julian had in mind a faint connection with ‘Finchley Central’, a tube station in north London which he had once used (and also myself as it happened).  Someone else (was it Martin Butterfield?) thought the association was, humorously, with ‘Ghosts Central’ in the Ghostbusters movie.  Was there another source?  These days it would not be surprising to find a claimed ‘Flowers Central’ for a florist shop, or some similar, faintly humorous, hyperbolic commercial use.

 

Since ‘finch central’ I have heard use of, for example,  ‘honeyeaters central’ and ‘ducks central’ to draw attention to places where such groups can be found, perhaps for just a short time. Such expressions are used in a light-hearted conversational sense, generally among birdwatchers.  I would be interested to know if ‘finch central’ is indeed their origin  or if there is a separate source.

 

Here ‘superb parrot central’ is used in a different way, certainly not light-heartedly.  The phrase is intended to indicate that the ACT has relatively large numbers of this threatened species, indeed ‘is going to become the most important area for the population’.  Is the _expression_ in the process of acquiring a new connotation?  

 

    

From: Janet Russell [
Sent: Thursday, 7 December 2017 8:20 AM
To: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");" target="_blank">g.au
Subject: [canberrabirds] Canberra becoming superb parrot central for not-so-superb reasons - ABC News Canberra becoming superb parrot central for not-so-superb reasons - ABC News

 

Canberra becoming superb parrot central for not-so-superb reasons - ABC News
Canberra becoming superb parrot central for not-so-superb reasons - ABC News

For your interest.

https://apple.news/A6fRcyp0BQpi3BxIeYBAjZQ

--

John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net

I want to be with the 9,999 other things.