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pecking order = (ανεπίσημη) ιεραρχία

nickel

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Διάβασα την προέλευση του όρου και τη βρήκα ενδιαφέρουσα.

Στη διάρκεια του Πρώτου Παγκόσμιου πολέμου ένας Νορβηγός ζωολόγος, ο Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe (όνομα που αποκλείεται να μεταγράψω χωρίς τη βοήθεια του somnambulist), μελέτησε την κοινωνική οργάνωση των πτηνών, ιδιαίτερα των ορνίθων, και έπλασε, για την παρουσίαση της μελέτης, μια σειρά από όρους με βάση τη λέξη Hack, που σημαίνει ράμφισμα στη γλώσσα του, μεταξύ των οποίων και το Hackordning, «κατάταξη σύμφωνα με τα ραμφίσματα».

Τα συμπεράσματα του Νορβηγού τα παρουσίασε στην Αμερική ο ζωολόγος του Πανεπιστημίου του Σικάγου Warder Clyde Allee. Σύμφωνα με την ιεραρχία των ραμφισμάτων, το πουλί που βρίσκεται ψηλά στην ιεραρχία τσιμπά τα άλλα αλλά δεν επιτρέπει να το τσιμπούν, ενώ τα πουλιά που είναι στον πάτο δέχονται τα ραμφίσματα των άλλων χωρίς να ανταποδίδουν. Αξίζει όμως να διαβάσετε τις λεπτομέρειες στο δισέλιδο από το βιβλίο Animal Aggregations (1931) του Allee.

Ο Άλντους Χάξλεϊ, που, όπως όλη η οικογένεια Χάξλεϊ, παρακολουθούσε αυτά τα θέματα, είχε ήδη παρουσιάσει τον όρο στο βιβλίο του Point Counter Point (1928):
«Observing the habitual and almost sacred ‘pecking order’ which prevails among the hens in his poultry yard… the politician will meditate on the Catholic hierarchy and Fascism».

Ο Γ.Χ. Όντεν έγραψε σ’ ένα ποίημά του το 1942:
Now watching this spot, like the hawk looking down
Without blinking, the smug hens
Passing close by in their pecking order,
The bug whose view is balked by grass.
Or the deer who shyly from afar
Peer through chinks in the forest.
http://www.phillipellsworth.org/post/491623495/nones

Ο Ντάρελ έγραφε το 1957 στην Justine (Ιουστίνη): «There is a Pecking Order among diplomats as there is among poultry». Πώς το μετέφρασε άραγε ο Χουρμούζιος;


Ιστογραφία:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/453561
http://www.archive.org/details/animalaggregatio00alle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecking_order
Safire's Political Dictionary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecking_order


Pecking order (Times Literary Supplement)
Watching chickens is a very old human pastime, and the forerunner of psychology, sociology and management theory. Sometimes understanding yourself can be made easier by projection on to others. Watching chickens helps us understand human motivations and interactions, which is doubtless why so many words and phrases in common parlance are redolent of the hen yard: "pecking order", "cockiness", "ruffling somebody's feathers", "taking somebody under your wing", "fussing like a mother hen", "strutting", a "bantamweight fighter", "clipping someone's wings", "beady eyes", "chicks", "to crow", "to flock", "get in a flap", "coming home to roost", "don't count your chickens before they're hatched", "nest eggs" and "preening".

OED:

pecking order

[f. pecking vbl. n.1 + order n., tr. G. hackliste (T. J. Schjelderup-Ebbe 1922, in Zeitschr. für Psychologie LXXXVIII. 227).]

1. A pattern of behaviour first observed in hens and later recognized in other groups of social animals, in which those of high rank within the group are able to attack those of lower rank without provoking an attack in return.

1928 A. Huxley Point Counter Point xxvi. 438 Observing the habitual and almost sacred ‘pecking order’ which prevails among the hens in his poultry yard...the politician will meditate on the Catholic hierarchy and Fascism.
1939 Auk LVI. 263 A position in the pecking order is not...always determined at the first meeting.
1952 M. K. Wilson tr. Lorenz's King Solomon's Ring xi. 147 This can be convincingly demonstrated by the existence of an order of rank, known to animal psychologists as the ‘pecking order’.
1965 Listener 10 June 861/1 Normal monkeys, like many other kinds of animals, form a sort of pecking order.
1972 Country Life 9 Mar. 541/1 The fat little bantam hen, who proved first in the pecking order...quickly asserted herself.
1974 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Oct. 1088/4 The term ‘pecking order’ has become part of common parlance.... After a brief trial of strength, every animal in the flock or the herd learns to know its place.

2. transf. A hierarchy based on rank or status.

1955 H. Nicolson Good Behaviour i. 7 In a perfect classless society...similar pecking orders must exist.
1957 L. Durrell Justine i. 64 There is a Pecking Order among diplomats as there is among poultry.
1959 G. Endore Detour through Devon 11 The pecking order obtains among cars on the road as well as among chickens in the barnyard.
1959 T. H. White Godstone & Blackymor 172 The ghosts...may have taken precedence in a kind of pecking-order, by virtue of the number of pipes which they could claim.
1961 Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Dec. 925/2 Man has animal instincts, instincts for desiring and holding territory and property, for creating a pecking order of dominance and hence status.
1962 Observer 25 Nov. 3/2 One of the most disastrous weaknesses of our whole educational system is its insistence on preserving formal hierarchies, a sort of academic pecking order.
1967 J. Potter Foul Play xvi. 184 The inspector had a pretty low rating in the CID's pecking order.... His office overlooked an unbroken expanse of sooty wall.
1967 M. Argyle Psychol. Interpersonal Behaviour iv. 70 Groups develop definite ‘pecking orders’ in terms of amount of speech and influence permitted.
1973 Nature 30 Nov. 318/1 One of the interpenetrating pecking orders that bedevil life in universities is the hard science/soft science hierarchy.
1976 H. Wilson Governance of Britain ii. 23 My own procedure was to rely on the order of precedence within the Cabinet, the so-called ‘pecking-order’, making clear that the second in the list chairs Cabinet.


peck-order

[f. peck n.3+ order n., tr. G. hackliste (T. J. Schjelderup-Ebbe 1922, in Zeitschr. für Psychologie LXXXVIII. 227).]

1. = pecking order, sense 1.
1931 W. C. Allee Animal Aggregations xix. 344 The ‘peck-order’ decides which birds may peck others without being pecked in return.
1939 G. K. Noble in Auk LVI. 264 A peck order...does not appear unless the birds [sc. night herons] are crowded together in a strange area.
1955 Brit. Jrnl. Animal Behaviour III. 94/2 It is now recognized that the peck-order forms the basis of all group behaviour in adult chickens.
1966 New Scientist 26 May 536/1 Wolves live in groups, in which certain individuals are dominant: that is, they have prior access to food, females and other amenities. This sort of arrangement may be called a peck order.

2. transf. = pecking order, sense 2.

1953 A. Upfield Murder must Wait xvi. 138 Amid the lower Australian peck order...wines are imbibed from the bottle.
1962 A. Sampson Anat. Brit. i. x. 150 The Inns [of Court] have their own elaborate snobberies and peck-order.
1965 Punch 17 Mar. 389/1 Dons have always had an instinctive feeling for prestige, not to say ‘peck-order’.
1971 W. J. Burley Guilt Edged ix. 149 The human peck-order is far more subtle than that of the hen-house.
 
Να συμπληρώσω; :)
Επίσης, η ιεραρχία αυτή είναι γραμμική:

Linear pecking order
Dominance hierarchies can be despotic or linear. In a despotic hierarchy, only one individual is dominant, while the others are all equally submissive. In a linear hierarchy, for example, in the above cited pecking order of chickens, each individual dominates all individuals below him and not those above him.

Ο Konrad Lorenz στο "Δαχτυλίδι του βασιλιά Σολομώντα" μελέτησε, μεταξύ άλλων, την κοινωνική συμπεριφορά της κάργιας (Corvus monedula) και παρατήρησε την οικεία σ' εμάς έννοια της εκδίκησης, το γνωστό "θα γυρίσει ο τροχός, θα γ... κι ο φτωχός":

Jackdaws, like chickens, establish a hierarchy, and the position of the individual jackdaw determines all pecking rights. Who may peck whom? No jackdaw may peck another who ranks higher in the order. This is known in zoology as a "linear or straight-line hierarchy". A high-ranking jackdaw may peck those of lower rank, and there is always that lowly jackdaw who is pecked by all, and can peck no one in return.
Jackdaws mate for life, and like most birds who follow this custom become engaged early in life, long before sexual maturity. First the young males of a new brood struggle among themselves to decide their individual status, and then pairing with females begins. The jackdaw female promptly upon pairing assumes the same social position of her male. His rights and restraints become her rights and restraints.
Should a female not secure a mate, then she remains the lowest ranked member of the flock in all social things. She is last to the food and last to the shelter. She is pecked by the lowliest, and snubbed by the least. Nor are there any lesser jackdaws on whom she can vent her frustration. As Lorenz related, it was one of these lowliest females that gave him much insight into jackdaw social behaviour. When a strong male returned to the flock, absent during the time of dominance struggles and male-female pairings, he quickly became the number one dominant male. He was forced to choose one of two unmated females for his mate. Instantly his new mate rocketed up the jackdaw social ladder and was able to peck others as much as she wanted, and she did. It took her a year to settle down. According to Lorenz the most significant factor of social behaviour was the immediate and intuitive grasp of the new hierarchy by each and every jackdaw. From the hour of her ascendancy, every jackdaw by oldest instinct knew his new place, and hers. She was "number one".
 

Zazula

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