"half-hardy" for "half-hearted"

George Thompson george.thompson at NYU.EDU
Fri May 4 01:34:40 UTC 2012


>From a birdwatchers' email group.

The New Rochelle peregrines were noisy again today.  They were calling to
each other and at one point flew off slowly next to each other towards the
coast.  One also went after a pigeon in a half hardy attack but totally
missed it and then slowly flew low over me back the the plaza.  Quite cool.

The mistake was probably brought on because there is a technical
term "half-hardy" referring to birds capable of toughing out a northern
winter if it's not too severe.  The writer is a wildlife biologist.

GAT

--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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