Taxacom: A compromise solution (was Re: Single official lists of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega many proposals to this list))

Thu Jul 6 15:24:50 CDT 2023

Dear David,

for the record, yes, what you explained is exactly what I meant i.e. "
Let's say the date that will be fixed is 1 Jan
2024. A paper will be published in 1 Dec 2023, proposing Neobombella gen.
nov., and Bombus lapidarius will be transferred into it as Neobombella
lapidaria comb. nov. This will be a valid nomenclatural act at that date.
Then on 1 Jan 2024 the new Code will take into effect, and on 5 Jan 2024
someone will synonymize Neobombella with Bombus and reinstate the previous
combination -- but because of your new rule, the valid combination now will
be *Bombus lapidaria* (because that was the last valid nomenclatural act
published before 1 Jan 2024, it was a valid act that time!), with no
respect of the literally thousands of publications that used Bombus
lapidarius before 1 Dec 2023"

What's wrong with Bombus lapidaria as the current valid name? If you want
more name stability and usability then that is a great solution. Of course
all the other name combinations and variants of the species-group name
should be/are recorded in any decent synonymic catalogue.

Best wishes,

George

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

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On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 15:05, David Redei via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
wrote:

> Robert Lücking asked this:
>
> "*Tricholoma album (a mushroom) -- Correct spelling or not?*
> * Who will be faster to answer this question: *
> * A. Those who have a basic knowledge of Latin and Greek and follow the
> rule of gender agreement, or B. Those who advocate that one should apply
> the orthography of the first publication of the name?*"
>
> I agree with the assessment of Robert, but I want to stress that the
> question is inaccurate, because Robert omitted option C: "Those who need to
> look back either the prevailing usage or the last valid taxonomic act
> published on 1 Jan 202X [the date when the new Code, fixing usage at a
> given date and renders epithets unchangeable after that date, will take
> into effect].
>
> Now, I believe that Robert makes a valid point when he claims that A is
> better than B, but I want to add that either A or B are much better than C.
> For me, fixing epithets at a given time is by far the worst idea. Get a
> name, try to establish its current prevailing usage (now, in 2023). It
> might be easy or not. Then get a name and try to establish its prevailing
> usage in 1923, or the last valid taxonomic act about this name preceding
> 1923. That is a bit more tricky. Imagine that researchers in 2123 will have
> the task of establishing the prevailing usage in 2023, or or the "last
> valid taxonomic act" (whatever it is supposed to mean, not entirely clear)
> in 2023, for names.
>
> George Beccaloni wrote: "*Well, what about the suggestion I made to Adam's
> idea "rather than relying on 'prevailing usage' to 'fix' the name, the new
> Code could set a date, and state that the name to be used after that date
> is the one used in the last valid nomenclatural act published before that
> date. That would be unambiguous.*"
>
> George, what do you mean that "the name to be used after that date is the
> one used in the last valid nomenclatural act published before that date"?
> Not entirely clear to me. Let's say the date that will be fixed is 1 Jan
> 2024. A paper will be published in 1 Dec 2023, proposing Neobombella gen.
> nov., and Bombus lapidarius will be transferred into it as Neobombella
> lapidaria comb. nov. This will be a valid nomenclatural act at that date.
> Then on 1 Jan 2024 the new Code will take into effect, and on 5 Jan 2024
> someone will synonymize Neobombella with Bombus and reinstate the previous
> combination -- but because of your new rule, the valid combination now will
> be *Bombus lapidaria* (because that was the last valid nomenclatural act
> published before 1 Jan 2024, it was a valid act that time!), with no
> respect of the literally thousands of publications that used Bombus
> lapidarius before 1 Dec 2023? Why is it good? What improvement will it
> represent? Or imagine a species which are used in different combinations by
> different authors: e.g. some place it in genus X-us and subgenus Y-a,
> therefore its name is X-us (Y-a) z-us, but others treat subgenus Y-a as a
> valid genus, therefore they use the combination Y-a z-a. Who will be the
> winner, the one who will manage to publish his paper closest to 1 Jan 2024?
> Why do you think this is good? Or when you write "last valid nomenclatural
> act published before that date", you mean, the last act which was published
> before that date *and still regarded as valid at the present*? And if later
> it will be regarded invalid, then what will one need to do? If the species
> will be validly transferred to another genus in the future, and it will be
> accepted by the community (so the new combination will be viewed as valid),
> it will render all previous combinations invalid, and there will be no
> valid combination before 1 Jan 2024. It is not very clear to me how you
> imagine the usage of this rule in practice, the proposal sounds a bit fuzzy
> to me, and so far I do not really see what improvement it would represent
> to the current situation.
>
> David Redei
>
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 19:29, Lücking, Robert via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
> > Tricholoma album (a mushroom)
> >
> > Correct spelling or not?
> >
> > Who will be faster to answer this question:
> >
> > A. Those who have a basic knowledge of Latin and Greek and follow the
> rule
> > of gender agreement, or
> >
> > B. Those who advocate that one should apply the orthography of the first
> > publication of the name?
> >
> > My prediction is that (A) should take at best a few seconds, whereas (B)
> > could take anywhere from one to many minutes, depending whether you know
> > how and where to search.
> >
> > Don't forget that both (A) and (B) constitute rules that have to be
> > followed. And when it comes to rules, if nothing else matters, the one
> > which is more practical should be followed. And what is more practical
> than
> > saving time by being predictive and resolvable without having to consult
> > the (not always readily available) literature? (And by the way, that
> > literature is often in Latin... or in a typeset many of us will have
> > difficulties to read)
> >
> > Abandoning (A) in favor of (B) would be getting rid of one rule but
> > adopting another one that is for sure more confusing and more time
> > consuming, because everytime you have the feeling a termination is wrong,
> > you would have to go back to the protologue to check. And we all know
> that
> > misspellings occur in almost every resource and publication.
> >
> > By the way, it is not necessary to actually know or learn the basics of
> > Latin and Greek to understand rules of nomenclature. Just download the
> PDF
> > of Stearn's Botanical Latin here:
> > https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2FBOTANICALLATINWILLIAMSTEARN&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C4eed7e1e9d3745c9c81908db7e5f1c55%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638242719230373641%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SkDrw%2FpdC6AB3qVaLpkrh5DtGxhD55y%2F5y%2BjhvQSW6E%3D&reserved=0
> > The rules apply equally to zoological nomenclature and practically all
> > cases are explained, in a way easy to understand. Checking something in
> > here is still faster than going back to the protologue for each name, and
> > it is predictive, while protologue checking is not.
> >
> > Robert
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> > Von: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> Im Auftrag von Daniel
> > Gustafsson via Taxacom
> > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 6. Juli 2023 12:57
> > An: Adam Cotton <thaibaggie at gmail.com>
> > Cc: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> > Betreff: Re: Taxacom: A compromise solution (was Re: Single official
> lists
> > of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega many proposals to this list))
> >
> > This also seems to miss the point.
> >
> > The point, as I understand it, is that instead of having A-us b-us (for
> > instance) as a universal pattern within a genus, you would have to
> > remember (or look up) whether it is A-us b-us, A-us b-um, A-us b-e, A-us
> > b-a, etc., individually for each species. There would be no way to ever
> > predict what the name ends in for anyone, regardless of whether you had a
> > classical education, speak a Romance language, or just like Latin. It
> would
> > all be based on whatever someone thought was the prevailing usage within
> > the group at an arbitrarily chosen point in time.
> >
> > I don't care much either way when it comes to gender agreement but this
> > seems to be unnecessarily complicated for no clear reason. It reminds me
> of
> > nothing so much as when some phylocoders got the great idea to freeze
> > genus+species for each taxon so that the genus name was preserved even
> > if the species changed clades, and there would be no predictability of
> > relationship based on the name that is used.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Daniel
> >
> > >
> > > You seem to have missed the whole point, you would no longer need to
> > > worry whether a genus and a species name is masculine, feminine or
> > > neuter EVER again, they would become names that never change.
> > >
> > > Adam.
> >
> > >> No, sorry, I absolutely do not like Adam's suggestion. Then genera
> > >> will contain some names with masculine, some with feminine, and some
> > >> with neuter ending, and sorry, I do not want to remember that "OK,
> > >> Bombus lapidarius, Bombus ruderatus, Bombus alpinus, Bombus confusus,
> > >> Bombus auricomus and Bombus balteatus are all masculine, but Bombus
> > >> germanica and Bombus pulchra are feminine and Bombus nigrum is
> > >> neuter, because they were recently transferred from other genera and
> > >> they kept their former ending.
> > >> (Imaginary
> > >> names.) Throwing away rules and making people remember each and every
> > >> name one by one is considerably more difficult than following rules.
> > >> People can cite examples of problematic adjectives, but the fact is
> > >> that the overwhelming majority of the adjectives are easy to handle.
> >
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> > >
> > > Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration
> > > for about 36 years, 1987-2023.
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Daniel R. Gustafsson, Research Assistant Professor Institute of
> > Zoology Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
> >
> > Ask me about chewing lice!
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> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> > about 36 years, 1987-2023.
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> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> > about 36 years, 1987-2023.
> >
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>
> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> about 36 years, 1987-2023.
>