Taxacom: Mandatory ending correction after 226 years of wrong usage - the Dasytes case

[Thomas Pape]

The issue of gender agreement can be seen from various angles.
Try to ask students whether they prefer to look up a species epithet in Catalogue of Life, or to consult a Latin dictionary.

I picked at random a taxonomic paper containing a good number of scientific names of spiders:

Brigittea avicenna 
Mesiotelus patricki 
Micaria atropatene
Palpimanus carmania 
Palpimanus persicus 
Rhysodromus genoensis 
Rhysodromus medes
Sestakovaia annulipes  
Sestakovaia hyrcania 
Zagrotes bifurcatus
Zagrotes borna
Zagrotes parla

Try to ask a student, which of these names would have to adhere to gender agreement, and what their ending would be if all these species were transferred to the genus Funny Lin & Li, 2022 (family: Dictynidae).

/Thomas


-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Douglas Yanega via Taxacom
Sent: 30. januar 2025 20:27
To: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Mandatory ending correction after 226 years of wrong usage - the Dasytes case

On 1/30/25 10:11 AM, John Grehan via Taxacom wrote:
> with respect to "  Radical proposals like abandoning gender agreement 
> and reverting all names to their original spellings would result in 
> changes to the spellings of something on the order of 300,000 to 
> 400,000 names across zoology. Abandoning gender agreement would be the 
> *most* disruptive thing we could possibly do."
>
> just want to be clear that I for one am not an advocate for reverting 
> all names to their original spellings. For my group this was a fait 
> accompli, at least as determined by three influential taxonomists 
> among an extremely small pool of specialists. While I went along with 
> the gender abandonment, I don't know if every hepialid taxonomist 
> does. Never had time to survey for that.

The key thing here is the "fait accompli" nature of the situation with Lepidoptera, and - for those still following this thread - it actually reinforces some of the things I've been talking about.

First, because it IS a long-standing tradition, there are not many cases in leps where different taxonomists use different spellings for the same species' name.

In other words, despite violating the Code, the practice is so universal and has been in place for so long that there are no disputes - the names are stable, with very few exceptions. In that respect, in my role as a Commissioner, I don't get too upset about it, because one of the most important mandates of the Commission is stability (again, defined as a consensus of treatment, not the absence of change). So long as lep names are *stable*, it does not run counter to the SPIRIT of the Code, even though it might violate the LETTER of the Code.

Second, and this is perhaps a more subtle point, but also important: the fact that lepidopterists do not adhere to gender agreement makes them a good "test case" for what it would look like if everyone else were to follow suit, and it raises some VERY meaningful issues.

Consider this:

Suppose you look at a set of butterfly names that all refer to the same taxon, let's say

Mitoura grynea

Mitoura gryneus

Callophrys grynea

Callophrys gryneus

Lycus gryneus

Just looking at these names, *you can't tell* which ones are spelled correctly. If you're a taxonomist encountering one of these names for the very first time, you absolutely MUST consult an official list of names, published by an authoritative source and based on the original description, to know for certain how the species name should be spelled.

If gender agreement applied here, then there would be no mystery, and no need at all to consult an official list of butterfly names. Mitoura grynea, Callophrys grynea, and Lycus gryneus, would be correct spellings in their respective genera. It's *easy*.

So, by virtue of rejecting gender agreement, you sacrifice the ability to - in *most* cases - simply look at a name and KNOW when it's right or wrong, in exchange for having to consult a list that will tell you what is or is not correct. There is, in fact, a COST to rejecting gender agreement. You may not need to use a dictionary, but you still need to research the correct spelling. In fact, you need to know the *original* spelling, meaning consulting a lot of old literature. You're trading one sort of research for another. Individual lepidopterists benefit only if someone else has *already* compiled lists of spellings from the original literature, and made that list available.

Here's the thing, though - if you're already committed to the fact that you have to consult an official list that tells you how a name should be spelled, why not use an official list that ALSO tells you whether a name is a noun or an adjective? Then you wouldn't have to abandon gender agreement, and you wouldn't need to personally research the linguistics behind every name. Just look it up in the list.

I have actually undertaken this project, and am very near completion - a list of the genders of all ~380,000 available zoological genus-rank names, plus a second list of words that are declinable adjectives. 
Individual taxonomists from ANY discipline will benefit since someone else has compiled these lists, and I can make those lists available when I'm done.

We can keep gender agreement AND get rid of the burden where individual taxonomists need to either do linguistic research (as non-lepidopterists do), OR read all of the original literature (as lepidopterists do).

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314  voicemail:951-827-8704
FaceBook: Doug Yanega (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
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