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Catbird seat. The gray catbird, Dumetella carolinensis, atop a stalk of grain. " The catbird seat " is an idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties. It derives from the secluded perch on which the gray catbird makes mocking calls.
Catbird. White-eared catbird. Gray catbird. A gray catbird voicing cat-like sounds at Wildwood Preserve Metropark, Ohio, US. Several unrelated groups of songbirds are called catbirds because of their wailing calls, which resemble a cat 's meowing. The genus name Ailuroedus likewise is from the Greek for 'cat-singer' or 'cat-voiced'.
The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first recorded usage of the phrase catbird seat to this story. [1] Mrs. Barrows likes to use the phrase. Another character, Joey Hart, explains that Mrs. Barrows must have picked up the expression from the baseball broadcaster Red Barber and that to Barber, "sitting in the catbird seat" meant "'sitting pretty,' like a batter with three balls and no ...
English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language.This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts.. This article describes a generalized, present-day Standard English – a form of speech and writing used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news, over a range of registers, from formal to ...
Muscicapa carolinensisLinnaeus, 1766. Turdus felivoxVieillot, 1807. A Gray catbird stands in the grass. The gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), also spelled grey catbird, is a medium-sized North American and Central American perching bird of the mimid family. It is the only member of the " catbird " genus Dumetella.
There are about 17 species in two genera, although three species of mockingbird from the Galápagos Islands were formerly separated into a third genus, Nesomimus.The mockingbirds do not appear to form a monophyletic lineage, as Mimus and Melanotis are not each other's closest relatives; instead, Melanotis appears to be more closely related to the catbirds, while the closest living relatives of ...
The green catbird ( Ailuroedus crassirostris) is a species of bowerbird found in subtropical forests along the east coast of Australia, from southeastern Queensland to southern New South Wales. It is named after its distinctive call which sounds like a cat meowing, although it has also been mistaken for a crying child.
In linguistics, a grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rules, a subject that includes phonology, morphology, and syntax, together with phonetics, semantics ...