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Foul-Mouthed Parrots to Return to Park


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2020 Oct 1, 8:06am   1,104 views  1 comment

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/world/europe/swearing-parrots-lincolnshire.html

www.youtube.com/embed/6rUhQFDxm-4

Five birds who moved to an English park had unprintable vocabularies, which they deployed on amused guests. Keepers said the parrots also learned to laugh at one another.

LONDON — When Steve Nichols, the chief executive of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, heard employees loudly swearing in the next room, he went over to tell them off.

But there were no employees in the next room. Just the birds.

He then realized that five parrots who moved to the park in the same week shared an unfortunate trait: They all had filthy, filthy mouths.

With more colorful language than plumage, the African grey parrots — Billy, Elsie, Eric, Jade and Tyson — used different curse words in different British accents, but they were all unprintably coarse. At one point, a group of women walking past the aviary thought the lewd comments shouted at them were from a hidden staff member, Mr. Nichols said.

The park had no complaints — in fact, visitors reveled in swearing right back at the birds — but the park officials feared children and parents might not enjoy the experience as much, he said. The chirpy birds were moved into a temporary space away from the public eye, giving them time to be around more family-friendly birds and hopefully clean up their vocabulary.

The birds are expected to be released back into the main colony Wednesday, after their time removed for bad behavior.

A major problem of the parrots’ language, he said, was that it was hilarious.

“When a parrot swears, it’s very difficult for other humans not to laugh,” he said. “And when we laugh, that’s a positive response. And therefore, what they do is they learn both the laugh and the swear word.”

“It’s not so bad with one on its own,” he continued. “But then, if you get five together, once one swears and another one laughs, and another one laughs, before you know it, it sounds like a group of teenagers or an old working men’s club.”

One parrot was especially foul-mouthed, he said: “Billy is the worst one.”

The birds arrived at the park, about 130 miles north of London, at the end of August from five different owners across Britain. Each owner apologized that their pet might have picked up a few choice words, Mr. Nichols said.

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1   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 Oct 1, 8:42am  

It's about fucking time!

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