[Taxacom] Correct name of the Wasp Spider

[Geoff Read]

There is no diacritic in the name in the original publication.  Looking as
hard as possible I cannot detect any diacritic mark on the U.   Someone
may have wrongly added a diacritic later but it was not in the original.

Go to p.125 at this link:
http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PID=PPN572160542&physid=PHYS_0001

Aranea Brunnichii

Geoff

On Sat, July 8, 2017 7:51 pm, Paul van Rijckevorsel wrote:
> For completeness sake, the -e- will have been added
> because it was (presumably) named after the Danish
> zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich. As governed by
> Article 32.5.2.1 an umlaut in a German word (or a
> word about which there is doubt as to its provenance)
> is to be deleted and an -e- is to be added.
>
> Paul
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Yanega" <dyanega at ucr.edu>
> To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Friday, July 07, 2017 7:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Correct name of the Wasp Spider
>
>
>> On 7/7/17 5:14 AM, Dilrukshan Wijesinghe wrote:
>>> This is a classic case of nomenclatural busybodies "correcting"
>>> original
>>> spellings to their notion of what a name should be, without following
>>> the
>>> original spelling. The same thing has happened with numerous other
>>> spider
>>> names (and no doubt with the names of other animal species). To take
>>> another spider example: the original spelling of the name of the
>>> pantropical jumping spider which is usually given as "Plexippus
>>> paykulli"
>>> (with one terminal i) was Attus paykullii, described by Audouin in
>>> 1826.
>>> With its transfer to the genus Plexippus the name should, of course, be
>>> written as Plexippus paykullii (Audouin, 1826), yet the World Spider
>>> Catalog (http://www.wsc.nmbe.ch/species/32089/Plexippus_paykulli) gives
>>> it as Plexippus paykulli. Roewer (1954, Katalog der Araneae, 2b, p.
>>> 1086)
>>> gives this name correctly as Plexippus paykullii.
>>> I think the wholesale changing of -ii to -i for the names of spiders
>>> was
>>> introduced in the more recent spider catalogs.
>>
>> There is a Code Article for this specific type of change (below), and
>> the
>> same rule (33.3.1) applies; if the incorrect spelling is in prevailing
>> usage, then it *becomes* correct, accordingly. If the only place these
>> spider names are spelled "-i" is in the catalogs, then they might not
>> qualify as being in prevailing usage (also below).
>>
>> "33.4.Use of -/i/for -/ii/and vice versa, and other alternative
>> spellings,
>> in subsequent spellings of species-group names.The use of the genitive
>> ending -/i/in a subsequent spelling of a species-group name that is a
>> genitive based upon a personal name in which the correct original
>> spelling
>> ends with -/ii/, or vice versa, is deemed to be an incorrect subsequent
>> spelling, even if the change in spelling is deliberate; the same rule
>> applies to the endings -/ae/and -/iae/, -/orum/and -/iorum/,
>> and -/arum/and -/iarum/."
>>
>> "*usage, prevailing*,/n/.
>>
>> Of a name: that usage of the name which is adopted by *at least a
>> substantial majority of the most recent authors* concerned with the
>> relevant taxon, *irrespective of how long ago* their work was
>> published."
>> (emphasis mine, to highlight that one calculates usage by counting
>> AUTHORS, not works, and that one can go back as far as one deems
>> necessary
>> to assess the pattern).
>>
>> I'm not pointing this out to start a debate over the pros and cons of
>> "prevailing usage", only to point out that these provisions do exist,
>> and
>> that the reason these provisions exist is so people won't keep changing
>> spelling back and forth based on finding old forgotten references, and
>> arguments over grammar. The "novel" principle that the 2000 Code edition
>> introduced is that stability is best achieved through consensus (rather
>> than incessant one-upmanship as to who can dredge up the oldest and most
>> obscure references, or make the most scholarly foray into the nuances of
>> Latin grammatical construction). It is unfortunately hard to come up
>> with
>> a purely objective criterion as to what, exactly, constitutes
>> "consensus",
>> so the definition of prevailing usage adopted is not perfect, but it's
>> an
>> approximation. Names can be rendered *permanently* unalterable via the
>> List of Available Names (LAN: Article 79), but that's a special and
>> difficult process.