My Huckleberries Online crowd is easily distracted. I posted a bushy-tailed predator photographed along the Kalispell Bay beach path by the Priest Lake Photos Facebook crowd on Tuesday – and asked whether the critter was a coyote or wolf. The overwhelming consensus (including from the Sandpoint F&G office) leaned “Wile E.” Too small and the markings were wrong for Br’er Wolf. Then, the conversation focus switched to the proper pronunciation for “coyote.” One claimed “coyote” with a long-E is a dead giveaway that the speaker is a darn Easterner. Another that KYE-yoat indicates that the speaker is a Zane Gray/Louis L’Amour fan. A third opined: “The English cognate ‘coyote’ is taken directly from the Spanish word of the same spelling, in which the final “e” is pronounced (co-yo’-tay).”  Read more.

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