An inordinate fondness for abbreviation

[Geoff Read]

Greetings,

"Where the latin name of a species is repeated several times in a page or
section, it is permissible and sometimes actually helpful to abbreviate
the generic name after the first use of it." (Blackwelder)

That's the suggestion. It is not some rule of law that A GENUS NAME MAY
NOT BE WRITTEN OUT IN FULL MORE THAN ONCE IN A PAPER. Or is it? Sometimes
I get the impression an author (or editor) would rather die than repeat a
genus name. This defies commonsense and certainly strains the patience of
this reader. I DO NOT want to look back several paragraphs or pages to
find out what on earth the species is under discussion. I DO NOT want to
be confused by meeting in a sentence two or more abbreviated species
names of different genera but with the same letter of the alphabet. I DO
NOT want to wade through an alphabet soup of abbreviated names in a
sentence. But I'm often forced to do that by some biologists and their
editors.

What I want is reasonable repetition of the full name of all the species.
They're probably unfamiliar to me. I haven't been studying them for months
as the author has. I need to learn them as I go. I need easy absence of
ambiguity in the sequence of abbreviations.

If I have written a paper on Hirudo medicinalis, do not mention any other
species, mention H. medicinalis fifteen times, then perhaps I have saved
the publisher the equivalent of a sentence of text. In any other context
the saving is not worth the obfuscation.

This passion for abbreviation must be resisted. I've even seen it spread
into gardening articles in the newspaper where the journalist (aping his
botanical sources?) enthuses about R. or F. something-or-other hybrids
without once mentioning what R or F might be :-). That's barmy. But the
person thinks he's given the article more scientific weight. I suspect the
same rationale applies to some of us.

A pet peeve expressed. Thank you for listening.





--
   Geoff Read <gread at actrix.gen.nz>