"Watchable wildlife"

[George Thompson]

"Watchable wildlife" means "wildlife available for watching"
or "accesible to wildlife watchers".  One guidebook company (Falcon, of
Helena, Mont.) publishes "The Watchable wildlife series" of state
guidebooks, for instance "West Virginia wildlife viewing guide" by Mark
Damian Duda.  This draws the subject labels "Wildlife viewing sites--
West Virginia--Guidebooks" and "Wildlife watching--  West Virginia--
Guidebooks".  Another title in the series -- apparently 25 to date --
is Tennessee wildlife viewing guide, by Paul B. Hamel, publ.
1993.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bethany K. Dumas" <dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU>
Date: Thursday, June 20, 2002 6:17 pm
Subject: Re: OED appeals list

> On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Jesse Sheidlower commented on the sense of
> "machinable."
>
> I have been wondering about the range of the -able adjectives. The
> stateof TN sells a wildlife license plate whose slogan I find
> particularlyobnoxious: Watchable Wildlife.
>
> I suppose that anything visible is "watchable." I also suppose
> that by
> "watchable" the state means something like "worth watching" or
> "beautifulto look at" - doesn't seem to work, to me.
>
> Bethany
>