If you are a genuine Kansan, say born in Bazaar, you probably already know this. But if you’re a native of, say, Dallas or Minneapolis, you probably grew up mispronouncing the name of a native Kansas animal, the coyote.
It’s co-yote, not co-yot-ee.
The frustrating part of this is that people who put the “ee” on the end of the word insist they know more about coyotes than people who have actually seen one.
I was once one of four editorial writers on a metropolitan newspaper. Two of us wrote columns as part of our tasks. The editor, our boss, ordered one or the other of us to write a “mood piece” once a week. A mood piece was a column of mostly fiction meant to entertain.
We both refused to do it and secretly made fun of the weekly mood pieces, which the editor had to do himself. We eventually pronounced “mood piece” with the accent of Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies.
One of the editor’s mood pieces featured “the noble Flint Hills coyote, standing atop a grassy knoll, nostrils flaring.”
In my experience, coyotes don’t show themselves often or for long. I’ve seen light gray, dark gray and an occasional yellow coyotes, but never their flared nostrils. If they were flared, I would never have known because by the time I sighted him, the coyote would have been long been gone, along with his or her nose.
If you do see a coyote, it will usually be the animal’s rear end as he heads for his or her den.
On our 20 acres north of Rose Hill, we had six chickens, all of which gradually got eaten by coyotes except for one. She taught herself to fly on top of the old garage and stay there until the coyotes were gone.
Only once was I close enough to a coyote to see its nose. It was winter, and I chanced to see one up against a corner of the horse barn. He was dark gray and I was definitely too close to him.
He growled at me as if to say, “This is my place, and I’m cold. Go away.”
He was either cold or rabid. Maybe I should have shot him. I decided it best to leave him alone.
He may still be chasing chickens, nostrils flaring from the top of a grassy knoll. For the sake of the chickens, I hope not.
Contact Ted at tblankenship218@gmail.com.
