Value of 'naming'

[Curtis Clark]

At 07:16 PM 7/12/96 -0600, Jerry Bricker wrote:
[standardized common names for plants]
>I admit it may be a pipedream.  This might be a solution to any teacher's
>dilema, though.  Teach the standardized common name and go from there.
>Students would be better served learning concepts related to ecology,
>behavior, reproduction, etc. that effect the bird, plant, fungus, animal
>than what its silly scientific name is.

Or teach students at an early age how to pronounce them. I've toyed with the
idea of switching to "Spanish" pronunciation of binomials, since so many
students here in southern California have familiarity with the sounds of
Spanish. In the short term that would be harmful, though, to those who would
get jobs where they would need to know the "English" pronunciation. The same
problem would ensue if they only knew standardized common names.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curtis Clark                      http://www.sci.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department                     Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona    FAX:   (909) 869-4396
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                          jcclark at csupomona.edu