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Word of the day: yaffle

Uncle B saw one of these in the garden today. It is a European Green Woodpecker. Not his picture, though — the little peckerhead moved too fast.

I had a poke around the web, which informed me that the green woodpecker’s call is a liquid laughing yaffle.

Liquid laughing yaffle. Well, I never.

Only one document added ‘liquid’ to the mix, but they pretty much all say laughing yaffle. You might be forgiven for thinking ‘yaffle’ is a general term for a kind of sound, but no. It’s specific to the green woodpecker, which is also called a ‘yaffle’.

Pity. It seemed such a promising word.

You can make up your mind whether this sounds like a laughing yaffle to you. I’m torn.

Which brings us to Woody, who was not modelled after a European green woodpecker, but a pileated woodpecker, which also has a laughing call. The deep lore of Wikipedia tells me that the inspiration was an acorn woodpecker that pecked holes in Walter Lantz’s honeymoon cabin. He wanted to shoot it, but his wife suggested he make a cartoon about it instead. It became his most famous character.

Why don’t my life ass-aches ever turn into award-winning triumphs?

Aforementioned wife, Carol Stafford, became the fifth and final voice of Woody Woodpecker, though she asked not to be credited for some years. She thought kids wouldn’t like it if Woody was voiced by a girl. (I thought she was also the voice of Talky Tina, but I was wrong. That was June Foray, who also played Rocky the Squirrel).

And that’s it. Man, I hated Woody Woodpecker.

September 9, 2019 — 8:08 pm
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