Q: "lanechtskipt"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 11/12/2013 09:45 AM, W Brewer wrote:
>JB:  <<"bare" ... If it's singular, I can only imagine that the polar bear
>of this list was seen as having some brown in its hair.>>
>WB: Context requires white bear = polar. (Or maybe it's bipolar? No, that's
>not funny.) How about albino? But evidently there are "brown, cinnamon,
>blond, blue-gray, or white" black bears. Blond(e)s are in Minnesota,
>incidentally.
>http://www.bear.org/website/bear-pages/black-bear/basic-bear-facts/16-black-bear-color-phases.html

The phrase is "black and whight bare".

If plural, one bear is the polar bear, well-documented as an
unwilling visitor to Boston in the 1730s.  Then the black hear is
presumably the American black bear (Ursus americanus), whose current
range includes Massachusetts (where they are increasingly appearing)
and the University of Maine, and which was common in New England in
the 18th century.  In 1739 a woman in Tolland Conn. sitting under a
tree during a hunt for honey was shot by a man who mistook her for a
bear.  That one would be captured alive and exhibited seems very plausible.

Singular seems unlikely.  What would one bear both black white be?

Joel

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