On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 05:43:20PM +1000, Greg & Val Clancy wrote:
> Below are Stephen Debus' comments on Tony Ashton's post.
> I think this is another case of loose use of 'hovering' just to mean
> stationary in the air, without flapping. Blacks are masters at
> it. Hovering is flapping flight; the stationary wind-hanging
> (without flapping) is 'poising' or 'kiting', or what falconers call
> 'waiting on'. I think a lot of misconceptions could be cleared up
> with use of precise terms. Otherwise, Tony's remarks are spot-on.
A little Googling reveals turns up an 1883 letter to Nature by Clement
Ley defending Hubert Airey's use of the word hovering for "hanging in a
motionless poise". Ley says there is nothing in the etymology of hover
to imply movement although the similarity to "quiver" and "shiver"
might give that impression.
This stemmed from an 1873 letter by Airey to Nature pointing out that
reports in Nature of birds hanging motionless in a horizontal wind were
physically implausible and there must have a vertical component in
the wind.
Google also turns by a 1928 Nature paper on animal locomotion by Mallock
saying what kestrels do is "not true hovering but merely flying against
the wind".
So Ley if he hadn't been dead for over a century would defend Tony
Ashton's language and Mallock, dead for over 70 years, might do the
reverse and chide Stephen Debus for creating misconceptions with loose
use of the word hovering.
Andrew
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