[Taxacom] Metadata for names of living things (addendum)

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Lynn,              

      Whoops, my bad.  I meant to say Kingdom with regards to Regnum.
My mind was already racing ahead of itself, whether or not to discuss
Phylum and Division (which have been used as equivalents in botany).  I
never liked the rank "Division" as that word is so generic (every rank
is a division of sorts).            
      
       I guess one could argue against Class as also being too generic,
but the specific objection to Class in this context seems to be by some
of the computer science guys who deal with databases.  I don't know if
it would be that much of a problem, but on the otherhand, I don't think
substituting Classis for Class would be much of a problem for
taxonomists.  Doesn't make much difference to me whichever way they go
on that one.   
           --------Ken                                          
------------------------------------------------------
Lynn Raw wrote: 

Ken, 
I think Regnum (a derivative of the Latin rex = king) is a synonym of
Kingdom not Phylum and having been used as such historically would be
confusing if used in a different sense now. I do not see any need to use
Classis instead of Class, this usage long precedes its use in computer
science where there should be no concern about confusion anyway as this
field uses many common words in very specific ways not necessarily
related to the usual meanings.