Taxacom: emmendation

Mon Feb 6 17:10:05 CST 2023

Dear John,
This must be judged for each case individually along the lines Thomas 
explained. I would not recommend to adopt such a statement and just cite 
the source. A taxonomist should always verify such statements in the 
original literature, as you intended to do that.

The guideline is provided in Art. 33.2. There are two kinds of 
emendations, justified and unjustified emendations, which differ 
substantially in their nomenclatural standing, so it is in any case 
necessary to report which of the two it is.

If the original name must be corrected under the Code (Art. 32.5) then 
the emended spelling is a justified emendation and just counts as the 
correct spelling of that original name - the name is attributed to the 
original author and also takes that date. It is not really necessary to 
cite the author who emended the name, because under the Code such an 
incorrect original spelling must be corrected by anyone who uses that 
name (of course with the exception of those who cite the name for 
documentary purposes).

In all other cases of emendations we are dealing with unjustified 
emendations, and there you need two sources: The original description of 
the name and the source cited for the emendation.
An emendation differs from an incorrect subsequent spelling in that in a 
case of an incorrect subsequent spelling there is nothing visible in the 
publication itself that the author changed that spelling intentionally. 
Usually the author does not show awareness that the original spelling 
was different.

A "correction" of a Latin or latinized Greek name is an unjustified 
emendation if the author left something visible to show that the change 
was intentional, and it is an incorrect subsequent spelling if the 
publication suggests that the author did obviously not even know that 
the name was spelled differently in the original publication.

If it is an unjustified emendation under this guideline, then that name 
in its unjustified emendation will form a new name with its own 
authorship and date (Art. 33.2.3). This is really serious, it is a new 
name that now comepetes with other names for homonymy. Such names must 
be recorded reliably, and they are important names to be listed in 
nomenclators. Insorrect subsequent spellings can be ignored, but not 
unjustified emendations.

You might have to check a second detail when verifying such cases. If an 
author stated "Aus niger (= brasiliensis Smith, cannot be maintained 
because the species does not live in Brazil)", then some taxonomists 
call this occasionally an unjustified emendation, which it is not. This 
is to be identified as a new replacement name because an emendation 
concerns only the spelling, and niger is not a different way to spell 
brasiliensis.
The Code is currently silent on the exact limit between an emendation 
and a new name, but we intend to close this gap in the next edition.

If you have difficulties in judging a case, you can send me a link to 
the original description and I can see what I can do.

If this helps.

Best wishes
Francisco

Am 06.02.2023 um 17:21 schrieb John Grehan via Taxacom:
> Thanks Thomas. This seems to me to be a bit of a quagmire, especially if an
> emendation does not have to be explicit to be characterized as such (which
> begs the question of how does one know if it is not explicit).
> 
> This arises in my case from a past catalog of the Hepialidae (Nielsen,
> E.S., Robinson, G.S. & Wagner, D. L. 2000. Ghost-moths of the world: a
> global inventory and bibliography of the Exoporia (Mnesarchaeoidea and
> Hepialoidea) (Lepidoptera). Journal of Natural History 34: 823-878.) where
> they list about 40 emendations, but do not say how they reached those
> conclusions. I have looked at a couple of the original publications so far,
> and it's beyond me to see in any obvious way. At the very least I guess I
> will list these names as emendations and cite Nielsen et al for that (and
> let others figure out their veracity should they so wish). As these names
> are synonyms to the accepted name, the emendation, or not, is not critical
> for my purposes.
> 
> John
> 
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 11:13 AM Thomas Pape via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
> 
>> An emendation is any demonstrably intentional change in the original
>> spelling of a name other than a mandatory change.
>>
>> This means that the *intent* to change the original spelling must be
>> somehow demonstrable, but it does not have to be explicit.
>> It also means that it does not matter whether or not the change is
>> linguistically correct.
>>
>> /Thomas Pape
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> On Behalf Of John Grehan via
>> Taxacom
>> Sent: 6. februar 2023 16:33
>> To: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>> Subject: Taxacom: emmendation
>>
>> Here's a right ignorant question. I have not previously dealt with
>> emmendations, but now that comes up with various species synonyms having
>> been so designated. Am I correct to understand that an emendation is a
>> correction of the original name to conform to correct Latin or Greek? And
>> if that is correct, how does one recognize an emendation as opposed to a
>> misspelling? Does one have to know Latin or Greek to make a judgement if
>> the emmendation was made without explanation?
>>
>> John Grehan
>>
>> --
>>
>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhepialidsoftheworld.com.au%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf303261344cc431d8af108db08974967%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638113218100778283%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0iHXhBAnbyFwr%2FQd9UY1HI%2B6xuhtcu51%2F23GzWvYntk%3D&reserved=0
>> (use the 'visit archived web site'
>> link, then the 'Ghost Moth Research page' link.
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>> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
>> about 36 years, 1987-2023
>>
> 
> 