Taxacom: Single official lists of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega many proposals to this list)

Thu Jul 6 01:08:46 CDT 2023

Hi Thomas,

I agree with your students! I simply memorise the currently accepted name -
and I am sure that's what most people do. Most users of names (scientists
who are not taxonomists and the public) know little if anything about the
Code and gender agreement. My belief (which could easily be tested with a
survey of such users) is that many grudgingly accept that species are
sometimes moved to new genera, but most are bewildered when the spellings
of species-group names are also altered. If the spellings were fixed this
would benefit the majority of users of scientific names. Surely the ICZN
should be mindful of satisfying the actual users of scientific names,
rather than pandering to outdated tradition?

George

****************************************************************************
*Dr George Beccaloni FLS*
*Director, Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project*

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On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 01:10, Thomas Pape via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
wrote:

> >>> gender agreement is very useful indeed ... as it makes the names so
> much easier to remember [Michael Heads]
> This is an argument often brought up, and it would be interesting to see a
> formal testing.
> Over the last five years I have been asking PhD-students and postdocs
> passing through my museum if they feel that gender agreement helps them
> remember names. They invariably said no. That is not a formal test, but it
> shows that not everybody agrees about this argument, and it may even
> indicate that gender agreement might be helpful mostly to those with some
> knowledge of Latin.
>
> >>> revert to original spellings ... would be the absolute biggest public
> relations nightmare we could ever ask for [Doug Yanega]
> This is to me the most important issue in the gender agreement debate.
> Changing, for example, "Bombus lapidarius" into "Bombus lapidaria" would
> probably meet resistance, but I am not sure it would be of nightmarish
> proportions. Lepisma, the genus of the common silverfish, was ruled to be
> of neuter gender in 2018, but most papers published on silverfish since
> then have been using "Lepisma saccharina". We will probably see a gradual
> increase in the use of "Lepisma saccharinum" over the years, and in a few
> decades this will be the prevailing spelling. And should gender agreement
> be abandoned, we will go back to the original "Lepisma saccharina".
>
> /Thomas
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Douglas Yanega
> via Taxacom
> Sent: 6. juli 2023 00:18
> To: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: Taxacom: Single official lists of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega
> many proposals to this list)
>
> On 7/5/23 1:54 PM, John Noyes wrote:
> > Hi Doug,
> >
> > Fair enough, but you cannot get away from the argument that gender
> > agreement is just simply 100% unnecessary. Forget about it being a
> > waste of time. If we all worked on the premise that all genera have no
> > gender then it would make life a whole lot easier. Like many people I
> > definitely prefer the original spelling.
>
> And you work, by and large, with species names that rarely enter the
> non-taxonomic literature. In contrast, using a few other hymenopteran
> genera as examples, consider that many of the most common bumblebee species
> in the world, and many of the most common ants, and many of the most common
> paper wasps, would all suddenly have to change spellings because they have
> been in masculine genera for over 100 years, but their original Linnaean or
> Fabrician genera were feminine (e.g., Apis, Formica, and Vespa). The many
> people - including laypeople - who are familiar with common European
> species like Bombus lapidarius, Camponotus herculeanus, and Polistes
> gallicus wouldn't be happy *at all*.
>
>
> The best estimate is that around 1/6th of the most well-known animal
> species in the world would have to change their spellings if we revert to
> original spellings (excluding butterflies). That would be the absolute
> biggest public relations nightmare we could ever ask for. If you think the
> furor over "offensive names" is bad, just imagine how much worse the public
> outcry would be if we told everyone that 1/6th of the animal species they
> know suddenly have different scientific names.
>
>
> Maybe, if you worked on a group in the public awareness, you might feel a
> little differently about the matter.
>
>
> > That way it would be completely objective and 100% stable.
>
> Changing 1/6th of all well-known names is *not* promoting stability.
>
> > However, if we had to determine the gender of every single genus it
> > would probably take at least 3 weeks even using the system that you
> > might be talking about because there is a good proportion of names
> > that would have to be argued over (e.g. Trichogramma, one of the
> > best-known genera in parasitic wasps which is currently used as neuter
> > whereas it is actually of female gender; Tetramesa is another that
> > springs to mind). Also, If we had to check the status (adjective, noun
> > in apposition, etc.) of every species name it would take a good six
> > months, even using the UCD. I think 6 months is minimum because very
> > many names appear to be adjectival, but might just be nouns in
> > apposition, e.g. flavus (a Roman general).
> >
> You seem to have missed the point I was making, that we don't want
> anyone to "argue over" anything, ever again. Complying with gender
> agreement can be trivially easy, and not involve any linguistic research
> at all, *and no arguing*.
>
>
> Case in point, under Article 30.1.2 of the Code, all names ending in
> "-gramma" are neuter, because "γράμμα" (gramma) is a Greek neuter noun
> transliterated directly into the Latin alphabet, and usage by the
> coining author is explicitly not taken into consideration.
>
>
> "30.1.2. a genus-group name that is or ends in a Greek word
> transliterated into Latin without other changes takes the gender given
> for that word in standard Greek dictionaries"
>
>
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2F%25CE%25B3%25CF%2581%25CE%25AC%25CE%25BC%25CE%25BC%25CE%25B1&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C67d4349562de479b57b208db7de78569%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638242205599286856%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FfSySHTGtBTMJYGJPYRsLEH1TdLKiXjhGkcg4XLmF8w%3D&reserved=0
>
>
> You appear instead to be looking at "γραμμή" (gramme), which is indeed
> feminine, but does not transliterate as "gramma".
>
>
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2F%25CE%25B3%25CF%2581%25CE%25B1%25CE%25BC%25CE%25BC%25CE%25AE&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C67d4349562de479b57b208db7de78569%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638242205599286856%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vqLXAC2g0R7FVTajOx17gJI8VryR6oj0S5sZMhgO2fU%3D&reserved=0
>
>
> In fact, there is a natively Latin noun "gramma" already, and it is also
> neuter.
>
>
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Fgramma%23Latin&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C67d4349562de479b57b208db7de78569%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638242205599442636%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=4gcaThJAxFZziH5SEKjMplP0So8ux7a6%2BcqF2KjhJn4%3D&reserved=0
>
>
> Accordingly, we appear to have an argument on our hands. However,
> *arguing* is a waste of your time and my time. It would save everyone a
> lot of annoyance if you were able to simply consult an official list of
> genus names and suffixes, where it says "-gramma" is always neuter and
> "-gramme" is always feminine. *Then there is no more argument*. Same for
> declaring that names like "flavus" are always adjectival, even if
> someone, somewhere, used them as a noun. If we try hard enough, can we
> dig up obscure references that use nouns as adjectives, or adjectives as
> nouns? Maybe we can, but linguistic research is *not our job*.
>
>
> No taxonomist should *ever* have to do linguistic research again; we CAN
> eliminate that, by having lists, and still keep gender agreement
> completely intact as a practice. All of the alternatives to official
> lists are much worse, including the status quo.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> --
> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
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>    "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>          is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> about 36 years, 1987-2023.
>