Pigeons are, in fact, doves (we just tend to call the smaller ones doves and the bigger ones pigeons, but they're all the same family, with several genera having both "dove" and "pigeon" members). Common pigeon and rock dove are both names for the specific species of bird in the video.
This video seems to get reposted a fair bit, though.
It's a linguistic distinction, not a biological one. And not all languages have it. German, for example, calls them all Taube (cognate to dove, both from Proto-Germanic \dūbǭ*).
I suspect you're correct. Pigeon comes from French, and it's pretty typical of English to have duplicate words from Germanic and French origins, with at least one of them gaining a new connotation. For example, cow (G) and beef (F).
The interesting part is that usually when this happens in English, the French-origin word is the fancy one, and the Germanic-origin word has a more rural or basic context (deer vs venison, cow vs beef, I'm just realizing all the examples I can think of are food lol). But that's flipped with pigeons - we tend to think of pigeons as kind of dumb urban pest creatures and doves as delicate little peace symbols.
Whenever this gets reposted for the 1,000,000th time the comments are always so crazy, bc either everyone is absolutely sick of seeing it (agreed!) Or everyone who complains about it gets downvoted to hell while the other commenters berate them for being annoyed that the same video gets posted basically every day.
Are we seriously gonna repost this every minute of every hour of every day?
I have been sent this video by basically every person I know who knows I love pigeons and I've yet to tire of it 😂
Pigeons are doves and this video gets posted every single day.
To be fair it is the greatest video of all time so...
It is indeed.
Pigeons are, in fact, doves (we just tend to call the smaller ones doves and the bigger ones pigeons, but they're all the same family, with several genera having both "dove" and "pigeon" members). Common pigeon and rock dove are both names for the specific species of bird in the video.
This video seems to get reposted a fair bit, though.
It's a linguistic distinction, not a biological one. And not all languages have it. German, for example, calls them all Taube (cognate to dove, both from Proto-Germanic \dūbǭ*).
I suspect only English has this distinction - every other language I've looked at has one word for both 🤔
I suspect you're correct. Pigeon comes from French, and it's pretty typical of English to have duplicate words from Germanic and French origins, with at least one of them gaining a new connotation. For example, cow (G) and beef (F).
The interesting part is that usually when this happens in English, the French-origin word is the fancy one, and the Germanic-origin word has a more rural or basic context (deer vs venison, cow vs beef, I'm just realizing all the examples I can think of are food lol). But that's flipped with pigeons - we tend to think of pigeons as kind of dumb urban pest creatures and doves as delicate little peace symbols.
I've seen this post with that exact title more than I've seen my father
Ooh, ooh! Can I repost it next?
Sure can!
Oh look, it’s only the 74,000th time this has been posted on this sub in 2025
A pigeon is a name for a colorful rock dove.
Whenever this gets reposted for the 1,000,000th time the comments are always so crazy, bc either everyone is absolutely sick of seeing it (agreed!) Or everyone who complains about it gets downvoted to hell while the other commenters berate them for being annoyed that the same video gets posted basically every day.
can a copy of this video be pinned in this subreddit in hopes it cuts down on the reposts?
Second time seeing the video, still love it. Stupid ass dove, so full of love
Not the Step-dad...
He's the dad that stepped UP!
Is there another language besides english that has two words for those birds?
Yes, this is the 17th repost this week. Still very cute. Keep posting this