[WikiEN-l] Species names

[Ray Saintonge]

Tony Wilson wrote:

>Moving on to the subject of EC's unilaterial edit war and cut & paste
>page move, having already called me a liar, EC then wrote: "I can
>affirm that I did not use it [cut & paste] in the course of this edit
>war". 
>
There is no such thing as a "unilateral edit war"

>I invite readers to visit
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Giant_panda&diff=988572&oldi
>d=988552 and see the evidence for themselves.
>
Sounds like trying to get a hell of a lot og mileage out of a single 
alleged cut-and-paste incident.

>The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
>The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
>and The Herpetologists' League
>
>have a joint commitee on English and scientific names, which is working
>to "achieve the goal of making a list of Standard English Names for
>North America and the world", adds some comments about the practical
>worth of common names in a broader sense that are worthy of further
>consideration. The para is lengthy, so I'll edit down a bit. As their
>examples, they take  ''Cynocephalus mormon''  and ''Cynocephalus
>sphinx'' (the Mandril and the Guinea Baboon). 
>
>Since 1904, these names have undergone the following
>vagaries:''Cynocephalus mormon'' became ''Papio mormon'', otherwise
>''Papio maimon'', which turned to ''Papio sphinx''. This might well
>have been confused with ''Cynocephalus'', now become ''Papio sphinx''
>,had not the latter meanwhile been turned into ''Papio papio'' .This
>danger averted, ''Papio sphinx'' now became ''Mandrillus sphinx'',
>while ''Papio papio'' became ''Papio comatus''  
>
>Their point, in short, is that if you want to refer to one of these two
>species and be sure that the reader knows which one you actually mean,
>you really *have* to use the common name! 
>
This rationale seems to be about Latin vs. English names rather than 
about capitalization.

>Oh, and they capitalise species names as a matter of policy.
>
After a long argument about using English names, we have an offhand 
''non-sequitur'' about capitalization.

>The Ohio Odonata Society  says: "English names have been determined for
>Odonata, (Paulson and Dunkle 1996), and accepted by the Dragonfly
>Society of the Americas (DSA) in an effort to bring some control to
>common names, thus addressing the demand for common names that has
>grown with interest in the order. Common names should be capitalized
>when referring to a species, but lower case when speaking in general.
>For example, we refer to dragonflies in general but to a King Skimmer
>(genus Libellula) or the Common Green Darner, (Anax junius).
>Capitalizing species names is desirable because many of them begin with
>adjectives or adverbs. It is difficult to determine the name of the
>common green darner (where 'common' might be editorial comment) as
>opposed to the Common Green Darner."
>
The Odonata are still a relatively small order of insects, but I'm sure 
that it still includes many members who do not have an English name at 
all, even if all of them in English speaking Ohio do. They are great 
fliers. I suppose that having them capitalized would stress their 
relation to the rest of the insect world as similar to the one held by 
birds among the vertebrates. ;-)

>The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (Australia) says:
>"Generic and specific scientific names are to be in italics.
>Standardized vernacular (common) names for species should be
>capitalised and first used in conjunction with the full scientific name
>and the scientific name should be used for all subsequent references to
>the species.When using the common name in conjunction with the
>scientific name, do not put the scientific name in brackets. Both
>common names and scientific names may be used in captions to tables,
>figures and photos. Common names used in a "generic" sense (eg: cats,
>dogs, foxes, eucalypts) should not be capitalised or italicised."
>
This sounds like an argument for using Latin names, with the common name 
appearing only when the species is introduced. What constitutes 
"standardized"?

>In the course of looking that stuff up (wasting yet more perfectly good
>editing time) 
>
It's an interesting attitude that documenting your POV would be a waste 
of time.

>I also stumbled across a number of other references,
>which serve to confirm the two broad trends that I and others have
>remarked on previously:
>
>(a) That decaptialisation is largely an American practice and is much
>less common in other English-speaking parts of the world.
>
The ''New Scientist'' is a British publication.

>(b) More interestingly, that there seems to be an almost 1:1
>relationship between the degree to which species names are capitalised
>in different taxa, and the extent to which species names are formalised
>and standardised. 
>
OK, but most English names are neither standard of formal.

>This makes excellent sense, when you think about it. In the case of
>birds, a common name is an exact 1:1 equivalent to the binomial name.
>It is, like the name of a type of aircraft or a model of car, a
>quasi-proper noun. Bird common names are not duplicated, even between
>different continents, and capitalisation of bird common names is
>practically universal. With mammals, the story is much the same. From
>my reading today, I gather that reptile names are not far behind
>either.
>
Aircraft and cars are human inventions whose inverntors (or their 
corporate sponsors) have certain privileges. No one '''invented''' the 
fauna.

>However, with fish this process is not as well developed. here are far
>more conflicting or ambiguous names, and capitalisation is less broadly
>supported - although nevertheless vigorously debated and something of a
>50/50 call.
>
You should thank yourself for being so generous to your POV.

>With arthropods (insects and spiders and so on), common names are not
>terribly useful as yet (and may never be). According to the American
>Arthropod society, more than 50% of the *families* do not have a common
>name yet, never mind individual species. Here, clearly, we have a
>situation where common names are little if any better than nicknames,
>and a strong case for decapitalisation can be mounted.(They themselves
>do not capitalise.)
>
Great! we have nothing to argue about here ... unless you want to start 
insisting about the Odonata.

>Finally, there is flora. The common names of plants are a horrible
>mess. Within any one geographic area they seem to be consistent enough,
>certainly for the larger species (trees, shrubs, wildflowers), but
>*between* areas they often conflict with one another. Australian plant
>common names, for example, do not conflict with one another, but *do*
>conflict with the names of other, completely different, plants in
>Europe and America. Eventually, one supposes, the botanical authorities
>will get their act together as the bird, mammal and reptile people
>have, and as the fish people are trying to do. In the meantime, though,
>plant common names are not terribly helpful a lot of the time. It is no
>doubt this very reason that stands behind the much greater usage of
>botanical names by laypeople interested in plants as opposed to very
>little usage of binomial names by laypeople interested in animals.
>Indeed, I am wondering if, as time goes by and the flora sections start
> to fill up, it might be sensible to consider using botanical names for
>plants more. (I'm not convinced that that is the best way to go, but
>it's certainly something that ought to be considered.)
>
Funny thing, I argued the same way a year or so ago, and lost. I quite 
openly support Latin names across the board for both flora and fauna, 
but I don't have the energy for an edit war on that topic. Let's stay 
focused the debate is about capitalization, not about using 
pseudo-official English names.

Eclecticology