The Crow's Ear
I am now certain that Avedon Carol (of The Sideshow) is a person after my own heart for pointing out this gem from The International Herald Tribune
Just 15 hours after he died on Saturday night, the great pageantry around the death of a pope began Sunday morning, with a huge public Mass in St. Peter's Square and then the first rites of his funeral: The 84-year-old John Paul was laid out in Clementine Hall, dressed in white and red vestments, his head covered with a white bishop's miter and propped up on three dark gold pillows. Tucked under his left arm was the silver staff, called the crow's ear, that he had carried in public.
Of course, those of us who know that the word for his staff is crozier (or "crosier", says my American Heritage Dictionary), feel smugly superior and quickly deduce that the story must have been transmitted verbally by telephone.
[Excerpt from "A public end for an extraordinary papacy" , by Ian Fisher of The New York Times, 4 April 2005.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!