Timeline for Is there a widely-accepted opposite of "as the crow flies"?
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| Jun 15, 2020 at 7:40 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Jul 23, 2017 at 13:52 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @HagenvonEitzen On a larger scale, yes. On a smaller scale (such as what's directly observable just by looking at a bird or a flock of birds going by above you), many migratory species fly in quite straight lines, with fairly sharp corners when they do change direction, rather than in undulating arches. Peregrine falcons, for example, frequently fly up to 20 or 30 miles in a straight line when migrating. | |
| Jul 23, 2017 at 13:44 | comment | added | Hagen von Eitzen | @JanusBahsJacquet Incidentally, migratory birds do not follow geodesics. E.g., from Europe to Africa, they mainly take detours to avoid the straight line across the Mediterranean. | |
| Jul 23, 2017 at 3:56 | vote | accept | tparker | ||
| Jul 21, 2017 at 11:24 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Pete Exactly—it just means a straight line because you can do that in the air. When I say “air vs ground”, I mean of course the limitations of air and ground: the direct, obstacle-free route possible in the air vs the obstacled route one has to go by on the ground. | |
| Jul 21, 2017 at 11:21 | comment | added | Pete Kirkham | @JanusBahsJacquet I've never heard the idiom used to mean anything other than 'in a straight line' in English, and is quite often used to talk about travelling on foot in open country or at sea where it specifically is not talking about flying. | |
| Jul 21, 2017 at 11:18 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Pete That may possibly have influenced which bird was chosen once upon a time, but it’s not a relevant part of the idiom’s meaning to people nowadays. And crows don’t really fly in straighter lines than many other birds, especially migratory ones; some birds flit more, some do not. The fact that it really is just air vs. ground is also reflected in the fact that equivalent phrases in other languages (Fr. à vol d’oiseau, Fi. linnuntietä, Da. i fugleflugt, Sp. a vuelo de pájaro) all deal with birds in general, not crows specifically. | |
| Jul 21, 2017 at 10:34 | comment | added | Pete Kirkham | The phrase isn't 'as a bird flies', but 'as the crow flies'. It isn't about ground versus air. Crows tend to fly straight and level - crows aren't scared of hawks and will fight them, most other birds flit unpredictably so predators can't predict them so easily. | |
| Jul 20, 2017 at 14:30 | comment | added | Doktor J | "By road" can simply be expanded to whatever alternative means of travel you're considering: "by foot" (you still have to walk around trees, buildings, ravines, etc), "by bike" (sticking to bike trails or the like), and so on. A more general term would be "by ground", leaving the specific mode of transportation more ambiguous while still suggesting that the route is longer than "as the crow flies". | |
| Jul 20, 2017 at 12:27 | comment | added | Max Williams | You might also often see "by car" used as an alternative, eg "10 miles as the crow flies, 12 miles by car." | |
| Jul 20, 2017 at 8:55 | history | answered | Andrew Leach♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |