Authors Electric

photo by WanderingMogwai (wikipedia, CC) It's butterfly season in the UK. Yes, I know... torrential rain as usual! But on sunny days they will be back on the butterfly bushes in search of food. I've always preferred to call them flutterbys, which makes more sense when you watch one flutter past - or should that be flutterbies? Never mind. It is apparently a myth that 'flutterby' was the original name for a butterfly! But why 'butterfly' as a common name? One explanation could be that when Dutch scientists were studying butterflies in the early days they thought the yellow droppings looked like butter, so they named the insects 'butterfly'. In old Dutch, that's apparently what it means... boterschijte ... butter-pooer. Another explanation knocking around the internet is that they were named after the colour of their wings, which in some species is buttery-yellow, although I think that's unlikely since there are plenty of other colours more commonl...