I'm Singing, I'm In a Store and I'm Siiiiingiiiiing
My dog woke me up very early this morning and I couldn't fall back asleep. It was the early morning before the freeway din becomes a roar and I heard something I don't ever recall hearing before: roaring birds. The cacophony of tweets, chirps, whistles, and peeps stood out in the gray like a high pitched overwhelming static.
Other than to say it was loud, I don't think we have the words to describe birds being this rowdy. Birds sing, or warble, or trill. They don't holler, and shout, and whoop it up. Well, they really don't do any of those things, they just make sounds of varying tone and complexity. I guess you can take issue with that, you can call it singing, we do call it singing, but it's not the singing humans do. (Unless of course you consider that boys join bands to get girls in much the same way birds might sing to get a mate). It's not even called singing by everyone- some cultures say birds cry. How sad. Anyway, we say birds sing, but calling it singing limits my ability to describe what the birds were doing this morning: screaming, yelling.
It sounds strange to say birds yell. The image of birds tearing into town on horses shooting their guns in the air, as soccer hooligans chanting at their opponents, or as a NBA coach on the verge of stroke is odd but it shouldn't be. Or perhaps it should, but other anthropomorphized ideas of birds should seem just as strange. A bird as a soprano is just like a bird as an olympic powerlifter.
I don't know what we gain or miss by saying birds sing, other than we have a way of talking about birds but our way limits what we might say about birds. We gotta say they do something- I guess.
It's early, so maybe I don't want to be all preachy about my anthropomorphized ideas of God. They're there too though, with the same possibilities and limits.
2 comments:
From Twain:
"Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about that; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate any remark which they made.
This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and some use only simple words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent, and they enjoy "showing off." Baker said, that after long and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:
'There's more TO a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and, mind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And no mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk--and bristling with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as for command of language--why YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I've noticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does--but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the NOISE which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad grammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and leave.
'You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure-- but he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.
'The sacredness of an obligation is such a thing which you can't cram into no bluejay's head. Now, on top of all this, there's another thing; a jay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear. Well, a cat can; but you give a bluejay a subject that calls for his reserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don't talk to ME--I know too much about this thing; in the one little particular of scolding--just good, clean, out-and-out scolding-- a bluejay can lay over anything, human or divine.
'Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry, a jay can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and discuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humor, a jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do--maybe better. If a jay ain't human, he better take in his sign, that's all.'
Mountain living has taught me that birds definitely can yell, and sometimes cuss. They do a lot more than sing. Especially jays. And ravens.
Ravens have whole conversations, and occasionally these break out into arguments.
I would absolutely agree that Jays cuss. I'll try to get a picture of the Jay that regulalry steals dog food off of the porch.
He lacks the lips to make the labial "F" but I know what he's saying to us.
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