Am I in the company of people who pronounce it "PAIR-oola" as in a Pair of Oolas? (BTW, Oola is a Twi'lek dancer in Jabba the Hutt's court.) Or am I surrounded by those who say "pa-RUH-la"? (To continue with what appears to be a theme, Ruhla, a 40's-era comic book character, is also a rather scantily clad fantasy woman.) It seems like whichever way I say it, there will be someone in the group who'll give me that look... the one that basically asks what planet am I from (Tatooine?) and if English is my first language.
And then, after much threatening to come up with another pronunciation just so I can confuse everyone, I ran across this article that says it is "PAR-you-lah". Drats! He beat me to it!
I've read that Audubon and Wilson both called it a "Blue Yellow-backed Warbler". Maybe I should attempt to resurrect that usage? Or possibly simply say "NP", short for Northern Parula? Or use "NOPA", the BBL code? Or call up RWT and see if he can come up with some totally new name for the bird like he did with butches (aka snickerdoodles)?
Probably anything is better than "umm... umm... umm..." while someone else calls out the bird.
(Photo courtesy of Paula Sullivan. More of Paula's wonderful photos can be found here.)
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