Talk:Eurasian hobby

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Taiga is not open country.[edit]

It is a bird of open country such as farmland, taiga and savannah.

Taiga is a dense coniferous forest. I doubt it qualifies as open country. Should it be tundra instead? -- Tjunier 08:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have put a citation needed tag next to the statement about the Eurasion Hobby giving its name to the table football game Subbuteo. It does sound somewhat far fetched to me. Unless someone can provide a reference for this it is going to have to be removed.--Greatestrowerever 22:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I have reverted the following line "A range of board games was also once going to be named "Hobby", but the inventor was refused permission. This resulted in the inventor finding the Eurasian hobby and using its name. And thus, the board game was named Subbuteo." due to lack of references. If anyone can find a source proving this to be true feel free to add it back into the article.--Greatestrowerever 22:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Subbuteo handbook issued in the 1970's-80's used to have this story in it. There is further info on the Wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subbuteo (79.190.69.142 (talk) 21:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Etymology of subbuteo[edit]

The Latin prefix 'sub-' is generally not rendered as 'near to', which is usually translated as juxta, or juxtim or prope. 'Sub-' generally means under, or beneath, or below. If the text accurately reflects the quoted source, then I believe it may be incorrect: the etymology can be deduced from dictionaries, without reference to this source. If the term 'sub-' is often used in this way in taxonomy, please correct me, I am no zoologist. MinorProphet (talk) 23:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

MinorProphet, Jobling is the standard reference for bird binomial names, which doesn't of course, mean that he's always right. He says "subbuteo L. sub near to; buteo buzzard", so the text accurately reflects the source. If you can find a different/alternative derivation with a suitably solid ref, you can, of course, add such. I have to say that the surrounding entries in Jobling beginning with sub- more often translate it as "near to" or "somewhat" than they do as "beneath" Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Jimfbleak You 'have to say' that "the surrounding entries in Jobling beginning with sub- more often translate it as 'near to' or 'somewhat' than they do as 'beneath'".

Well, using my spectacular research skills, I found Jobling on archive.org, and have updated the url for the ref. The ref itself quotes pp. 266 and 369. Page 266 contains no immediate reference to falco or subbuteo: the only thing I can find is naumannii, (Johann Friedrich Naumann) apparently referring to the lesser kestrel, falco of that ilk. Hmm, has this ref been grabbed from some other article without citing the correct pages? Oops, I bet. Anyway, I changed it to p. 157, where falco made its its sub-eyrie.

Having little else to do, I actually counted all the sub- entries in Jobling, and I agree with your initial assessment of his renderings of sub-, in that 'near to', 'somewhat', gets approx. 81 hits; 'under', 'underneath', 'beneath', 'at the foot of' 'under the arms/wings', 'lying beneath' has only 39 hits; and 'small', 'slightly', only 5 hits: effectively 66%, 33%, 1%. However, what a trove of other meanings!

Other forms

But thank you indeed for the rest of the single entries:

  • like, lesser: 1
  • trivial, slight: 1
  • under the mountain, sub-montane: 1 cf. "The dancers have all gone under the hill"
  • sub-arctic, 'nearly arctic'
  • sub-himalayan, which was worth the whole exercise, ta:
  • and subis, type of bird which breaks eagles' eggs, is fantastic, because I was in Scotland once, and someone pointed out a pair of golden eagles for me.
  • Interestingly, subita is from subire, to approach, to 'come near to'
  • subniger, 'somewhat black', 'blackish' =/= the alchemical term nigredo, plus subviridis, 'greenish'.
  • suboles, offspring, race, progeny
  • subula, shoemaker's awl
  • subvesperus, SSW (i fink) wind
  • subpudica, 'beneath shame'
  • subtilis - 'unadorned', 'plain' - from texere, to weave
  • subsessor, waylayer, ambusher
  • subsoccata - my current state
  • subsimilis - 'partly similar', which defines your entire answer to a 't'.

Hurrah for a multiplicity of meanings, and I now reckon that 'sub-' is best rendered as '-ish'. MinorProphet (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

...In the sense that 'black-ish' could be defined as 'a particularly dark shade of grey'. MinorProphet (talk) 05:12, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
MinorProphet, you have to wonder why the full text of a copyrighted book appears on archive.org! I added the Jobling derivations to all the British list species on Wikipedia, and although many are mundane, it's interesting how many lead to ancient myths or are based on mistakes. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:24, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Jimfbleak, in Germany, urtext editions of original works (eg Bärenreiter editions of Telemann's Passions) are out of copyright after (i fink) 30 years (I have one itching now to be scanned); and Otto Deutsch's seminal catalogue (1978) of Schubert's works is also on archive.org; so why not Jobling? (NB haven't looked yet, but there will pobably be a very good reason, under the laws of some country. NBB Copyright lawyer=Non-poor individual. NBBB Etymology often= 'lost in the mists of time'). MinorProphet (talk) 08:50, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
MinorProphet, I'm not blaming you for accessing a text that's there, but I find it difficult to believe that a 2010 text published in London can be out of copyright anywhere. There's some variation (eg UK is author's life +70 years, whereas US is publication date +70), but nothing close to that. All the Harry Potter books pre-date Jobling, I wonder how long a digitised version of those books would last before m'learned friends leapt into action? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have literally no idea: thinking about it, I imagine it is relatively 'forbidden' to link to a page that seems to be in some sort of breach of copyright. I have come across this sort of thing before on WP, and will seek out some knowledgeable people who should probably be able to help. (I'm busy for the next 48 hours, plus it's about to snow hard, eek power cuts, etc...) MinorProphet (talk) 13:02, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not so busy as planned, and no snow yet, but the man from Del Monte, he say yes!. So that's all sorted then, and thanks for your help.  Done MinorProphet (talk) 22:01, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]