All fowl are birds, but not all birds are fowl.īy the same token, before 1300, girl referred to a child of either sex.

We’ve reversed the order, so that fowl refers mostly to birds that are eaten-poultry, to bring a French-derived word into the mix. Our word bird, conversely, comes from the Old English brid, meaning a young bird, especially a young chicken. Consider our word fowl, which comes from the Old English fugol, meaning any old bird. It is also a source of confusion and frustration, since so many of those words have subtle connotations and refuse to stand still. Così è la vita-that’s just the way it is.Įnglish is a treasure trove of words, each with a precise meaning. Like most English speakers, most Italian speakers couldn’t tell you why there are different words for what seem to be the same things. Like English, Italian distinguishes rabbit ( coniglio) from hare ( lepre) and tortoise ( testuggine) from turtle ( tartaruga). Their languages are different, one point that distinguishes them. Italian and English speakers are biologically the same. In noting differences and distinctions, we classify. Just so, rabbits and hares are different: for one thing, rabbits prefer forested habitat, whereas hares favor open ground, among many other distinctions. Their environments mark a distinction between them. There is a major difference between them, though: Turtles are adapted to live in water, whereas tortoises are landlubbers. Turtle won because of Rabbit’s failure to see distinctions: In Rabbit’s eyes, all turtles looked alike, so Turtle posted friends along the racecourse so that one turtle or another was always ahead of Rabbit.Īll tortoises are turtles, members of the same biological order. In a Cherokee version of the story, the race had the same result, but the characters are called Turtle and Rabbit. When he awoke, he saw the plodding Tortoise cross the finish line. After taunting his slower opponent, Hare sped off and, far ahead, stretched out for a nap. A story attributed to Aesop recounts a race between a tortoise and a hare.

Così è la vita meaning