Conventions for common names?

[Thomas Lammers]

At 08:12 AM 8/23/01 +0200, you wrote:
>Apart from dinosaurs (and my kids were even younger when they learnt the
>names) virtually all bacteria are known by their scientific names. In some
>cases one uses "common names", but these are usually names associated with
>a disease - "the plague bacillus" or "meningococci" (associated with
>meningitis and Neiserria meningitidis). Otherwise there is a large circle
>of end users ranging from medics and the pharmaceutical inductry to your
>average yoghurt package (check out if Lactobacillus is mentioned).

And of course many plant common names used every day are generic
names  (petunia, gloxinia), sometimes misapplied (nasturtium, geranium),
sometimes anglicized a bit (rose not Rosa, lily not Lilium).  It's
basically an anti-intellectual attitude that leads people to demand
"common" names.  Hence my comment that it's better to educate the user
community.



Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-1002
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and
biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.

Webpages:
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Resort/7156/lammers.html
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/herbarium/herbarium.html
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