🚀 go-pugleaf

Peer Mankpoot <peer.mankpoot@euronet.nl>
<mp3k7ugibedf86ddovi4etraar0o3qpcln@4ax.com>  :
 
>MSZ schreef/citeerde op Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:57:57 +0100:
>
>> > > > What do you think of the hypothesis that the name of the bird was given
>> > > > as a surname originally to someone who could sing very nice?
>> > >
>> > >     In Italian, I think it is unlikely. When someone sings beautifully, we
>> > > say that s/he sings like a nightingdale.
>> > 
>> > Same in Dutch.
>> 
>> Well, in Polish we now also have the same common locution, but I think
>> it's not so much old (it must have come to Poland maybe from Italy in
>> the late Renaissance, durign the time of the Queen Bona Sforza (lat
>> XVIIth century), together with many other common expressions. The notion
>> "singing like nightingale" was criticised still in the beginning of the
>> XIXth century (i.a. by the famous Polis poet, Adam Mickiewicz, as a part
>> of a "foreign fashion", whereas we have many OWN nice-singing birds, but
>> unfortunately he does not enumerate them). 
>
>Xenophobia brought about by a bird of less than 10 cm in height - that
>is TRUE xenophobia! ;-)
> 
I always wonder about that old WWII song which goes "There'll be bluebirds
over, the white cliffs of Dover". 

I used to live in Dover and it puzzled me. 

I don't know what species a bluebird is, something North American perhaps,
or African?,   but there have certainly never been any bluebirds in or
anywhere near Dover. 
There are a lot of swifts and swallows though. 

There was a land speed record breaking car called "bluebird", and a boat..

Andy R [en,fr]
-- 
http://www.europa.usenet.eu.org

Europa.*  is the usenet hierarchy for europe wide 
topics without language restrictions.