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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.
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 ...
Literature. This glossary of literary terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in the discussion, classification, analysis, and criticism of all types of literature, such as poetry, novels, and picture books, as well as of grammar, syntax, and language techniques. For a more complete glossary of terms relating to poetry in ...
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'.
Talking animals in fiction. A 1830 print by Achille Devéria depicting the story of Little Red Riding Hood, where a child mistakes a wolf for her grandmother and converses with it. Talking animals are a common element in mythology and folk tales, children's literature, and modern comic books and animated cartoons.
e. English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. [1] The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, are called Old English.
The Slough of Despond, illustrated by Rachael Robinson Elmer, 1913. The Slough of Despond (/ ˈ s l aʊ ... d ɪ ˈ s p ɒ n d / or / ˈ s l uː /; [1] "swamp of despair") is a fictional bog in John Bunyan's allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, into which the protagonist Christian sinks under the weight of his sins and his sense of guilt for them.
t. e. Old English literature refers to poetry (alliterative verse) and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. [1] The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as ...