Italicization of scientific names

[John McNeill]

Dear colleagues:

Having just responded with the laconic "Why" to the confident assertion by
Manmeet (?Gurcharan) Singh (University of Delhi) that "Only the names of Genera
and species are to be in italics, not any suprageneric taxon", I thought I
should explain myself.

But then I discovered that Jim Reveal had already done so to large measure.

Nevertheless let me quote more fully from the Preface to the Botanical Code that
Werner Greuter and I wrote in 1994:

"The method by which some or all scientific names are set off in
printed text varies substantially between different countries and
language traditions.  Perhaps as a result, there has been an
unevenness in this regard in different editions of the Code.  In
an attempt to achieve uniformity, the Sydney Code and the Berlin
Code italicized all scientific names at the rank of family and
below, i.e. those for which priority is mandatory.  The present
Editorial Committee recognized that this policy was rather
illogical, and, in the Tokyo Code, all scientific names falling
under the provisions of the Code are italicized, whereas informal
designations appear in Roman type.  For example, in Art. 13.1 (d)
the ordinal names _Uredinales_, _Ustilaginales_, etc. are italicized,
whereas the informal group name "fungi" is not.  The Editorial
Committee considers this to be the most appropriate presentation
in a code of nomenclature but does not aim to impose this as a
standard to be followed in all other publications, which may have
different editorial traditions, often of long standing."

As others have noted, some journals, including _Taxon_, have adopted this
policy, which is certainly more logical (for what that is worth) than most other
italicizing conventions of which I am aware.

But the real point is that these are indeed conventions -- some may have a
logical basis, as does the current ICBN (& _Taxon_) practice, but there cannot
be any question of "right or wrong" (or "accuracy and inaccuracy")

John.

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  John McNeill, Director Emeritus, Royal Ontario Museum,
  100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6, Canada.
  Tel. and fax # 416-586-5744  e-mail: johnm at rom.on.ca
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