BEWs, REWs, And PEWs

Those who take a look into the Rabbits section of my website will note that there is one way in which I deviate from the preferred terminology of other “rabbit-people.”

It is standard for bunny-aficionados to refer to blue-eyed white rabbits and to abbreviate that phrase as BEWs. On that, I readily agree. But when characterizing albino rabbits, those same folks will typically label them red-eyed whites or ruby-eyed whites, hence REWs. That is where I disagree. It is my strong preference to instead call them pink-eyed whites, and for a very good reason.

When we say that a person or a rabbit has blue eyes or brown eyes, we are referring to the color of the iris, because it is only that part that is blue or brown. In either case, the pupil is black. In an albino rabbit, the iris is pink; only the pupil is red or ruby. Thus for consistency, I feel that we should label according to the iris, not the pupil, just as we do for any other eye-color, and therefore call them pink-eyed whites.

I suspect that the typical bunny-person is aware of all that, but simply prefers the abbreviation REW to PEW, since, after all, we don’t wish to imply that our little darlings are stinky. (In fact, being herbivores, they smell infinitely better than any cat or dog I have ever met. However, I will refrain from discussing the aroma of their litter-pans). In that, I quite concur, hence my noticeable tendency to avoid the abbreviations altogether.