Animal and Plant Names.
Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 4:45 pm
I grew up in a place where many plants and animals were called by names I've not heard them called anywhere else. For example, the generic word "greenbrier" for species of Smilax was unkown, and the word "bamboo" was used exclusively. One species of greenbrier is called "bamboo brier" pretty universally, but almost nobody I've met anywhere knows this. Of course "bamboo" was also understood in the ordinary sense, the meaning left to be inferred from context: do you have a big bleeding wound from the plant or don't you? Also, the bird that most people know as a towhee was called a "joree". I can come up with more if anybody is interested.
I'm interested in three things:
1) how widespread are these particular names? I now live only 125 miles from where I grew up and nobody here knows what a joree or a bamboo (sense 1) is.
2) In general, how widespread is the phenomenon of extremely localized names?
3) How do some names of fairly common objects become almost universal (think "robin") and others get such dialectical names ("joree")?
I'm interested in three things:
1) how widespread are these particular names? I now live only 125 miles from where I grew up and nobody here knows what a joree or a bamboo (sense 1) is.
2) In general, how widespread is the phenomenon of extremely localized names?
3) How do some names of fairly common objects become almost universal (think "robin") and others get such dialectical names ("joree")?