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beak/bill

The hen used her to pick up the corn the ground.


Are beak and bill the same thing? Andwhich fits here better, beak or bill?
Second, could I use 'from" to replace "off" without changing its meaning?
Thanks.
The hen used her to pick up the corn the ground.


Are beak and bill the same thing? Andwhich fits here better, beak or bill?
From what I've seen I'd say they are synonymous, at least in common parlance.
Second, could I use 'from" to replace "off" without changing its meaning?
Thanks.
I'm almost sure you can, though can't tell if there's a difference.👁 Eek! :o


Tom
You should use "beak", bill is very rarely used.
If you want to say "off" then you should say " to pick the corn up off the ground"
If you want to say "from" then you should say "to pick up the corn from the ground"
"off" is more colloquial.
Thanks, Thomas and rikybains.
I like your suggestion--"pick the corn up off the ground" or "pick up the corn from the ground." They sound so right.
By the way, are "beak" and 'bill" the same thing as I have googled their photos. Yet, they look almost the same.
i wouldn't use bill at all unless it was very specific for a specific animal or something. Beak is more widely used for birds, ducks etc.
Idiomatically (among those of us who aren't bird watchers or ornithologists), one or the other more likely to be used with some birds than others. You will see chicken beak more often that chicken bill, but duck bill more often that duck beak. My personal guess is that we tend to use "bill" for the flatter, blunter kinds (ducks, geese, etc.) and "beak" for the sharper, pointier kind (chickens, eagles, etc), but I'm sure someone will point out an exception.
On a bird, a bill and a beak are the same thing. But I have only heard bill, not beak, for the flat appendage on a platypus and beak, not bill, for the parrot-like appendage on an octopus.
we tend to use "bill" for the flatter, blunter kinds (ducks, geese, etc.) and "beak" for the sharper, pointier kind (chickens, eagles, etc), but I'm sure someone will point out an exception.
That's certainly how I've always understood (or perhaps imagined👁 Eek! :eek:
) the difference ~ bills are for sifting, the way ducks and swans and platypuses do; beaks are for pecking and picking, the way sparrows and eagles and other birds do.
Hello,
An ornithologist talking to a non-ornithologist might well use beak but talking to or writing for another ornithologist would always use bill: bill length, bill depth, bill width, bill colour... and never beak length etc. no matter what make of bird.
Oh I forgot to mention that I sidestep the problem by using neb for all beaks, bills, snouts, noses etc.👁 Smile :)


Neb is cognate with nib, if I remember right. If it isn't, it ought to be.
OED in the entry for 'bill':
In Ornithology, beak is the general term applicable to all birds; in ordinary language beak is always used of birds of prey, and generally when striking or pecking is in question; beak and bill are both used of crows, finches, sparrows, perching birds and songsters generally, bill being however more frequent; bill is almost exclusively used of humming-birds, pigeons, waders, and web-footed birds.
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