Althouse: Coot fluffs its pillow at dawn.

May 25, 2026

Coot fluffs its pillow at dawn.

This was yesterday, at 5:07 a.m., on Lake Mendota. I'm concentrating on the coot with its improbably pillowy white breast, and Meade's remark — "Everyone's being so quiet and serene" — refers to the geese in the background. They usually make a big honk over our arrival in their territory.

12 comments:

Saint Croix said...: The Althouse accent reminds me of my D.P. in film school, who was from Green Bay. "Yah. They know they're in mah movee."; 5/25/26, 4:40 AM
john mosby said...: "improbably pillowy white breast" would make a great masthead motto. CC, JSM; 5/25/26, 4:47 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The Althouse accent reminds me of my D.P. in film school, who was from Green Bay."

The idea that I'm surrounded by people speaking with a stereotypical Wisconsin accent is kind of funny. I don't think I have had much direct exposure to it at all. I might have something of Michigan by way of my mother, who grew up in Ann Arbor, but if I take one of those on-line accent texts, they always put me in the Philadelphia category. That's because they don't have a separate Delaware category. But Delaware it is, by way of my father and the 12 years of my life.; 5/25/26, 6:12 AM
Ann Althouse said...: ""improbably pillowy white breast" would make a great masthead motto. CC, JSM"

Why not "coot fluffs its pillow at dawn"?; 5/25/26, 6:13 AM
rehajm said...: I wouldn’t know a Delaware accent. I recall one of those comedy episodes where Elizabeth Banks was making fun of a Maryland accent, though probably not the same…; 5/25/26, 6:14 AM
Fritz said...: I don't imagine there's much of a native Delaware accent at all. The northern, Trenton and Camden part is probably strongly influenced by New York and New Jersey, while the Del in Del Marva part likely sounds a lot like the Maryland/Virginia eastern shore, which sounds a lot like Tidewater Virginia and so on until it gets pretty southern.

I was born and raised in LA, so of course, I have no accent at all...; 5/25/26, 6:46 AM
Not an oldster. said...: She sounds East Coast snob, like a white lady trying to cook like Elizabeth or Katherine Hepburn... but she's just an orphaned ann who's parents had white trash habits (smoking, drinking, key parties to swap partners when the sexx got dull...)

Dawn Kresge was there this am in the presence of the water fowl.... it's why the ducks weren't disturbed today. Happy Memorial Day to all your dead....; 5/25/26, 7:08 AM
Jaq said...: If an accent doesn’t conk you on the head with its outré, like “toity toid and toid street,” it doesn’t exist. Growing up, I could definitely spot the accent of people living thirty miles away, but that was before television and nationwide radio kind of evened them out. People didn’t travel or move around as much, my father is buried in the same cemetery as his great grandfather. Not an uncommon situation there. I have lived in so many cities, far from where I was born, from Boston to Denver and a lot of places in between, that I doubt anyone could place my accent,; 5/25/26, 7:14 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: Delaware accent? I don’t think I’ve ever heard Althouse indiscriminately call someone “Jack” before.; 5/25/26, 9:44 AM
Saint Croix said...: Fred Armisen does every accent in North America.; 5/25/26, 12:22 PM
Saint Croix said...: (not Delaware, apparently); 5/25/26, 12:29 PM
MadTownGuy said...: Ted Danson wasn't there to say "Go birds."; 5/25/26, 12:58 PM