Here at Hooting Yard we hate and despise A. A. Milne and all his works. Dorothy Parker had it right when, in her “Constant Reader” column in the New Yorker, she wrote,

And it is that word ‘hummy,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.

Nevertheless, I am delighted to learn that the “Pooh” part of the name Winnie-the-Pooh was originally attached to a swan, Pooh being the name Milne’s son Christopher Robin gave to a swan he befriended in Angmering in Suffolk. If I did not have more important things to do with my time, I might go through the entire awful canon and rewrite the stories, making Winnie-the-Pooh a savage and violent swan instead of an allegedly cute bear. Volume I : Winnie-the-Pooh Attacks Tim Henman And Breaks His Arm.