Distance Learning: The Names of Birds
Why are American Robins thrushes, and England’s Robins flycatchers? Why did Audubon refer to vultures as turkey buzzards when they aren’t turkeys OR buzzards? And how can taxonomy help us understand the answers to these questions? In this lecture, self-professed word nerd and bird nerd Brodie Cass Talbott applies his linguistics training to his favorite subject: birds.