Sic Semper

An Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus).

For various goofy reasons, my husband, my sister, and I have developed our own names for many birds. This one is affectionately known as a Kingburger.

Sic semper tyrannis is the Virginia state motto, and the phrase that some witnesses claim JW Booth shouted after shooting Lincoln. It's often misspelled as tyrannus, which changes the meaning.

A little History of North American Bird Names.

While looking up tyrannus references, I ran across the Guidelines for contributors to Birding. Ruh-roh. I am so guilty of indefinite references. Oh dear. Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive clauses. Good thing I wasn't planning to write an article for them anyway.

(Imagine musical notes here.) It's my blog and I'll abuse grammar if I want to... overused ellipses and hyphens in place of em-dashes oh yeah! Misplaced apostrophes oh no no no... Misusing "hopefully" and blatantly writing a plural possessive adjective when referring to a singular concept, ooh wah baby...

Actually the misplaced apostrophe is one of my pet peeves.