nomenclatural evils

[Jacqueline Soule]

On Fri, 17 Mar 1995, Stephen Halford wrote:

> >Just in case some future
> > taxonomists want to go back to latin, we could use numerals which
> > correspond to the location of the letter in the Latin alphabet.  Thus,
> > Tagetes (a genus near and dear to my heart) would become
> > 2017520519.
> >
> Hey! we're missing a bet here -- if we convert our Latin numerology to
> Roman numerals, we can even confuse the computers!
>
> Feeling the flames already
>
> Steve (halford at sfu.ca)
>

Ok Steve, heres a bit of flame, the numerals displayed are actually
modified arabic numerals, 1,2,3, etc.  Roman numerals were closer to the
ancient Babylonian marks with wedge shaped sticks,,, e.g., X, I, M, etc.