Thursday 30 June 2011

oozlum bird

A follower of this blog known to me (inter alia) by the sobriquet of Limey introduced me to a word hitherto alien to me:

www.wildwoodtoys.com
oozlum bird

The oozlum bird is such a rare bird so that even ornithologists are quite unaware of it. This bird must not turn left when flying. If it does, then it flies around in ever decreasing circles until it disappears completely in its own a---hole in a puff of blue air. These flight characteristics explain its rarity.

The phonetically interesting question is how to pronounce the name of the bird:

LPD remains silent as does EPD. OPD? Nada!
But OED is a reliable source here. For General American it suggests /ˈuzl(ə)m/, and for General British the proposal is /ˈuːzlʌm/ (why not /ˈuːzləm/ as well?).

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