. This one?

That one.

This phrase, and its British counterpart naked as a robin, do not have clear origins. Naked as a robin appears in writing in the mid-19th century, while naked as a jaybird is first recorded in wartime America. The only plausible, yet undocumented, reason that a simile about nakedness might refer to these birds is the fact that bluejays and robins, when they first hatch, look quite naked, even though they do have a small amount of down on them. Like bluejays, this "robin" is an American thrush and is unrelated to the European robin.

For some reason, it was fashionable in the 14th century to give personal names to birds. Thus we have the robin, the martin, the jay and the magpie (i.e. Margaret-pie). It is interesting to note that the name jay here is probably also the same as in jaywalking. These words come from the proper name Jay, which was considered a common enough name in Britain that it came to be used to refer to provincial folk in general. In the U.S. it referred to unsophisticated rural people, and jaywalking was something those country folk did when they got to the city because they weren't accustomed to dealing with traffic back home. Jaywalk is peculiarly American and dates from the early part of the 20th century. Oh, and by the way, Jay as a name comes ultimately from Latin Gaius.

Take Our Word for it....

Absent at times like this....

Is it one of those 'local' papers which is full of nothing very much, except occasionally when this sort of thing happens?
New street-sign = big news, cat stuck-up-tree = full page feature?

L

It was unclear from the report whether Peter Griffin was one of the assailants.

L

And it adds: "The report estimated damage to Bowman's 2006 Dodge Charger at $3,000 and to Clark's 2007 Honda 600 motorcycle at $500. Places on the report showing whether Clark or Bowman were transported to the hospital were left blank." L