Outdoor terms provide alternative meaning, experiences
MOSES LAKE - There are many terms used to describe the various parts of the outdoors experience. Although these terms seem to be exclusive to the outdoors, they sometimes bleed into other parts of our everyday life.
Shotguns
Shotguns are a prime example. When a hunter says, "I'm taking the 12 gauge today," What does it mean?
My wife, Garnet, hunts turkey with a 20 gauge. What size shotgun is she using, what does gauge mean?
When a person indicated they are taking a 12 gauge shotgun into the field, they are indicating the size of the shotgun they will have in their hands, specifically the size of the hole in the end of the shotgun.
Now imagine a lead ball of .73-inch diameter. It will take 12 of these lead balls to make a pound. Another way to define a shotgun gauge is to say it is determined by the number of lead balls of the same diameter which will slip into the end of the shotgun and weigh one pound.
Therefore 12 lead balls of the same diameter will fit into the end of a 12-gauge shotgun barrel. Following this concept through, a 10- gauge shotgun is a bit larger and it will take 10 lead balls of the same diameter (.78 inch), which will fit into the end of the barrel, to make one pound; a 20 gauge (.62 inch), 20 lead balls, a 28 gauge (.55 inch), 28 lead balls.
The .410 shotgun is measured by diameter of the barrel, not by gauge. If it were measured by gauge it would be a 67 gauge.
Wildlife terms
An interesting part of the English language is the many different collective nouns meaning a group, but which are specific to a particular species of bird, animal, bird, insect, etc.
These terms are interesting and fun for me, as they are used to describe a group of wildlife.
"A covey of quail passed in front of my Ram and ran into a nearby bush," I might say, or, "The raft of ducks on Potholes Reservoir numbered will over 300 mallards."
But our language isn't so simple as to provide one term for one instance or group. For example, a flock is defined as a group of animals which live, travel or feed together, or a group of people which follow the leadership of one person, such as the members of a church.
So we can have a flock of geese, but when in the air they are a skein of geese, when on the ground they are a gaggle of geese.
Some insist a gaggle of geese must contain at least five birds and others use the term loosely meaning any group of geese on the ground. Gaggle is also a term used to describe eight, 50-pound bags of salt. Plus it describes a military group seemingly doing nothing, similar to a group of geese in a harvested corn field.
Other terms used to illustrate wildlife include: A murder of crows, an army of frogs, bale of turtles, kindle of kittens and hover of trout.
As is obvious, the English language allows writers to use more than one term to describe the same group of wildlife. Another example is a gam of whales, which is a group of whales not related, but a group of related whales is a pot. Because pod is a familiar term to describe a group of whales, related or not, it is frequently used, even when not the correct term.
The enjoyment of using different words to describe the same or similar wildlife species dates back to Mrs. Smith, my high school English teacher. Students walked into her room one day to find several sentences on the board illustrating different words used to mean the same animal or bird. The lesson of the day has been with me since.
As I dig deeper into the use of words the humorous aspect comes forward. A grist is a number or quantity, such as a grist of corn waiting to be ground at the mill, but it is appropriate to say a grist of bees. A group of bees can also be described as a flight of bees, hive of bees and swarm of bees, so it depends upon what the bees are doing or where they are.
The English language is certainly fun or confusing, depending upon your point of view. Take the word brace as an example.
Carpenters of a few decades ago know a brace as a hand tool used for drilling holes. A brace is also used to hold things together or to steady framework, as when building something.
A brace is used to straighten teeth, but is usually used in the plural as, "I wore braces when I was young."
When used in outdoor stories, brace usually means two, as in a brace of ducks.
A moose has an interesting looking clump of skin hanging from under the head or throat of the animal.
It is a dewlap, sometimes called a bell. A plant-eating animal is called a herbivore and a meat-eating animal is a carnivore.
The deer family are hoofed mammals having antlers, are ruminants and have no upper incisors, which include deer, elk, moose and caribou.
Animals and birds moving from one place to another in search of a better climate or in search of food are migratory, such as geese and hummingbirds.
Yes, using various words, which have the same meaning, makes a story interesting and less monotonous. In a few minutes, I'm heading into the Great Outdoors in search of a pod of whales, but will be satisfied if only a gam is spotted.