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From: comm@zeus.bris.ac.uk (M. Murray)
Subject: Re: Calling or colly birds
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Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 12:13:13 GMT
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Thomas M. Schenk, M.D. (tschenk@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: 
: In most versions of "Twelve Days of Christmas" (ca.1550), we hear "four
: calling birds".  Let me be the first to admit that I have no idea what
: species they may be.  In looking for the original lyrics, a version in
: the New York Times read "four colly birds".
 
I don't know who "we" refers to, but I can't ever remember hearing
"calling birds". Could it be that you, with your American ears, hear
"calling" because you can't distinguish the first syllables of "colly" 
and "calling", even when, as in English pronunciation, and therefore 
hearing, they are quite distinct. In many American accents, they are not 
distinguished, and therefore many Americans cannot hear the English 
distinction.

Remember the "bodyguards" that sounded like "bawdy gods" to an American?

: Merriam Webster 3 gives the *dial chiefly Brit* word "colly", meaning
: "to blacken with or as if with soot".(OE *col*).  My Concise OD is
: silent on "colly". It seems reasonable to conjecture that a "colly bird"
: is a blackbird(!?). Consider our modern English word "collier".

: If this is, on the other hand, just so much hot air, what the hell *is*
: a "calling bird"?

An American mishearing? Like the "C & I dog" I heard in the lyrics of 
Alice's Restaurant for many years. Arlo Guthrie left the g off "seeing"; 
I assumed he'd left the d off "and".

-- 
Martin Murray :: School of Chemistry, Bristol University, BS8 1TS, England
