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From: john@nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Jizz
Message-ID: <1990Sep1.231807.9059@nmt.edu>
Date: 1 Sep 90 23:18:07 GMT
References: <6881@milton.u.washington.edu> <585@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> <90244.113301JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET>
Organization: Zoological Data Processing
Lines: 43

Josh Hayes (JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET) writes:
+--
| ...the term "jizz". I had never run across this term before,
| guess that shows that I haven't done any birding on other
| continents.... Is this term an extraction from the German
| word "gestalt", as in Gestalt Psychology?
+--

I was involved in a rec.birds discussion on this very
subject a year or so ago.  Apparently the term comes from
plane spotters in England in WWII, from the acronym GIS
(General Impression of Shape).  U.S. bird magazines (e.g.,
_Birding_) have been using it for a while, and it is
spreading through this country.

When I learned to bird in California in the mid-70's, the
term ``gestalt'' was used pretty much the way ``jizz'' is
used now.  Since gestalt means a totality, I think the two
may be used interchangeably, although some people argued the
point.  I told one birder that gestalt meant the totality of
shape, posture, behavior, plumage, voice, geographic
location, microhabitat, and all the other possible cues.  He
replied, ``well, that's just PART of the jizz.''  The way he
explained it, there must have been a component of
extra-sensory perception!

Although I have to respect those with this kind of deep
field experience, sometimes I think the use of these terms
can be self-deceiving.

``Why do you think that was a Hammond's Flycatcher and not
  a Dusky?''

``Well, it just had that Hammond's jizz.''

It seems to me that sometimes such usage comes from the
strong urge to twitch a species (that is, check off a
species on a list---another British usage becoming common in
the US), and is used to support sightings in the absence of
any truly hard evidence.
-- 
John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, NM/john@jupiter.nmt.edu
``Let's go outside and commiserate with nature.''  --Dave Farber