Norwich bulletin., 1910-02-05

written Specially for The Bulletin. }
I've often wondered at the lack of
interest taken by country people in the
names of things about them. Some of
my good neighbOrs seem to think it
ready little beneath them to bother
about such trivial matters. Near the
ends of the steep mountain which bars
| me from the sunset at the west rise
two prominences, higher than other
parts of the ridge, perhaps a mile or
so apart. They are really very decent
little hills rising, one of them eighteen
hundred and the other nearly nineteen
hundred feet above sea level and both
of them more than a thousand feet
above the floor of the valley from
which they spring. The southernmost
and lowest has at last had the name
douglass Nnol3'' fastened to it SO I
think it will stick, from the dead and
gone Douglass who once owned it. The
cthers first owner was a man named
Keel er and for years some of US have
been trying to get "KeeIer's Peak ac-
cspted as a name for it. But thus far
without much avail. That's what
few of us call it; others talk about
| ''the Pinnacle;' others about that hill
.'Gilder's upper woodIot," and others.
d1sdaining even these attempts at
economy of speech, tell about that
hump on the north end of West noun
tain where Glider cut off his cordwood,
twenty years ago.
In the vegetable kingdom, among
plants and weeds, this curious aver
SION to calling things by their names
by their right names, at 1east-is
very marked. Some years ago I found
a new weed in my fields, and asked a
veteran neighbor what it was. ooh, it's
some kind o. charlock," he responded,
indimerently, and that was all I could
get out of him. Later discovered that
it was the Orange Hawkweed.'' or
Paint Brush one of the most pesti-
ferrous pasture destroyers known. Thus
far. knowing its meanness, I have
fought it out of my fields. But it is
already thick over the acres of many
neighbors, who slightingly decry my
strenuous work against it. 'Nothin
but a common weed,'' they say. Cant
keep weeds out O the pastures, and
there amt no use trying" So I doubt
not 1 shall, sooner or later, be overrun
by the pest, seeded upon me from my
neighbors.
whats in a manner" asked Shakes
peare. He went on to intimate that a
rose would smell just as sweet if you
called it by some other name. All of
which is individually true. Neverthe
less it is mighty handy to have a COM
mon understanding among ourselves
what we mean by certain words and
names. OF course you have the right
to call it a rose, and l have a perfect
legal right to call it a skunk cabbage,
if ( choose. But the result is apt to
be confusing when we get to talking
about the thing. If you ask me for a
and I lug you in a malodorous skunk
cabbage because in my high might
ness and American independence
have decided to call that a rose, would
you think there was anything in. a
name or not?
All language is for our common con-
Venience, and I can't see why we
al ha inf fnd fIA
Of that convenience, in learning and
using the right names for things which
we are daily associated with. Why, |
for instance, do you call a COW cow?
Why, because that is her name" you
answer Right-o. Go to the head. |
Why do you call the red-breasted bird
which comes in early spring along
with the bluebirds a. robin? why, |
because that is its name" you respond |
again. Excuse me, but it isn't. It's a |
thrush and bears about as much re- |
semblance to a robin as it does to a !
crow. The only earthly likeness be- |
tween them is that both have reddish |
breasts. And, of course both are birds. |
Why do you call a certain coarse weed |
4 daisy? 1t isn't a daisy. There is |
such a bird as the robin; there is such |
4 plant as the. daisy. Neither one be- |
ongs in America. Yet the rnisnaming |
Of our thrush and wild aster has been |
and is 50 common, so almost universal. |
hat some dictionaries have been driven |
% admit. unwi1lingly, definitions to fit |
he misbrandings.
"What difference does it maker you |
ask. eff we haven't the real robin /
Why can't we call this migratory thrush |
IF ours a robin?" Bless u.s. we cam
and do. Just so we can call it a con- |
Tor If we want to. That's not North /
American bird, either, and there's no /
aw forbidding us to call a thrush |
condor, if we want to- But what's the |
good of using wrong names when the |
light ones are just as handy? I'm not |
questioning our right, under the con-
stitution and laws, to cab anything by |
any name we please; I'm just amiab1y |
1oubting the wisdom of it, Calling |
things by wrong names might, under
conditions, lead to confu-
sion; using their right names never |
IAN What's the sense of taking
chances just for the sake of being |
stubborn?