“As far as words go, ‘crying’ is louder and ‘weeping’ is wetter. When people explain the difference between the two to English-language learners they say that weeping is more formal, can sound archaic in everyday speech. You can hear this in their past tenses—the plainness of ‘cried’, the velvet cloak of ‘wept’. I remember arguing once with a teacher who insisted ‘dreamt’ was incorrect, dreamed the only proper option. She was wrong, of course, in both philological and moral ways, and ever since I’ve felt a peculiar attachment to the t’s of the past: weep, wept, sleep, slept, leave, left. There’s a finality there, a quiet completion, of which ’d’ has never dreamt.”
thesunbittern is a bird found in tropical regions of the americas. despite its name and misleading body type, it is more closely related to tropicbirds than bitterns. the sunbittern is best known for its stunning plumage, featuring two orange ‘eyes’ that are used to scare off potential predators when the bird fans its wings. sunbitterns feed on a variety of prey, and are documented in captivity using tools, in this case lures to catch aquatic prey.
