What do the names bananaquit, invisible rail, and ticking doradito have in common? They’re all bird names. Doradito is a diminutive of the Spanish word dorado, meaning “golden,” while the ticking probably imitates the bird’s call. The rail in the rarely seen bird called the invisible rail goes back to a Latin term meaning “a screech.” The bananaquit’s name may reflect its yellow belly or the notion that it likes bananas, while the quit is like the sound it makes. It’s the same quit in the bird names grassquit and orangequit. Bananaquit, invisible rail, and ticking doradito are included in bird expert Robert Francis’ list of what he calls the The 100 Greatest Bird Names of All Time. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Meanings behind “Bananaquit,” “Invisible Rail,” and “Ticking Doradito””
You’re listening to A Way with Words.
It’s the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
And, Grant, I have a wee quiz for you.
A wee quiz?
All right, fire away.
Okay.
What do these three terms have in common?
Banana quit, invisible rail, and ticking Doradito.
Ticking Doradito, invisible rail, and banana quit.
These sound like the games the people at the National Positives League come up with.
They all show up with bags of Bananagram tiles, and they just invent stuff on the spot.
It’s incredible.
And and then when they stop playing, it’s banana quit?
Yeah, something like that.
I don’t know.
What are they?
Banana quits, invisible rail, and what was the last one?
Ticking Ticking Dorado.
All three of those, all the birders are raising their hands right now.
All three of those are names of birds.
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
I think…
So, Dorado, I’m maybe hearing a connection to Dorado, meaning golden there.
Exactly, exactly.
It’s a, it’s a yellow bird.
And so the ticking might refer to the sound that it makes because that thing is a great tradition in bird naming, naming them according to their sounds.
Exactly.
And I think invisible rail has to do with the fact that it’s rarely seen.
And the rail goes back to a Latin word that has to do with, with a sound, like sort of a screech.
And they’re beautifully camouflaged anyway, so this must be an incredible bird.
It’s hard to find.
Yeah.
And then the other one, banana quit.
What is happening in there?
Is that a reference to color?
Yeah, it does have a yellow belly, but apparently banana quits also hang around bananas.
I think they like bananas.
And the quit, may be a reference to, again, the sound it makes because they’re also grass quits and orange quits.
And I learned all this from a list of birds posted by bird expert Robert Francis online.
Well, we will link to Robert Francis’ list of amazing bird names, and he has some beautiful pictures as well.
You can find that all on our website at waywordradio.org.
And don’t you quit.
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