[Taxacom] the family Tortricidae or just Tortricidae

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

I agree with Ken. All three options can be correct.
It depends on context and intent.

Paul

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth Kinman via Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 8:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] the family Tortricidae or just Tortricidae


>     1.  I don't think it is necessarily redundant, because -idae is not 
> only the ending for animal family names, but it is also the ending for 
> plant subclasses (such as Rosidae).
>     2.  As for being singular or plural, it depends on the context within 
> the sentence.  Tortricidae are tortricids, so it can be plural 
> ("Tortricidae are moths").   But "Family Tortricidae" is a single group as 
> a taxon, especially when used as the subject of a sentence.  "Family 
> Tortricidae is speciose".   If you don't explicitly refer to it as a 
> family, you could say "Tortricidae are speciose" or "Tortricidae is 
> speciose", depending the context (plural  tortricids or as a single 
> taxon).   Likewise, you could say "Rosidae are speciose" (meaning rosids 
> are speciose), but it would be "Rosidae is speciose" if you are referring 
> to the subclass (a singular taxon).   Perhaps it is best to make your 
> meaning clear by saying "Rosids are a speciose group" or "Subclass Rosidae 
> is a speciose group".   Same for Tortricids and Family Tortricidae.
>                  ---------------Hope this helps,
>                                                       Ken
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Soowon Cho 
> via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Monday, October 12, 2020 8:47 PM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: [Taxacom] the family Tortricidae or just Tortricidae
>
> Dear members,
>
> As a non-native English speaker, I have two questions and really hope you
> could help me.
> 1. I feel curious about why people add "the family", "the subfamily", "the
> genus", etc. in front of the scientific name in writing: for example, "the
> family Tortricidae" instead of just "Tortricidae". Is there a pattern or
> rule in English? I thought it is redundant when we know Tortricidae with
> idae-ending means it is a family name.
> 2. Sometimes I see Tortricidae, Tortricinae, or genus name Tortrix is
> treated as a singular, but sometimes as a plural noun. I thought, based on
> the ICZN, they are basically plural, but, in many cases, they are
> considered as a singular noun. Spell checker also treats them as a 
> singular
> form. This may or may not be an English question, but I hope someone 
> please
> let me know how to distinguish between the two.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> --
> Soowon Cho
> chosoowon at gmail.com
> Dept Plant Medicine
> Chungbuk Nat'l Univ
> Cheongju, 361-763
> KOREA
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