plural collective nouns

[Thomas G. Lammers]

At 06:21 AM 10-30-98 -0500, Dr. Gurcharan Singh wrote:

>Thus "Winteraceae
>are primitive angiosperms" and "Winteraceae is a primitive family of
>Angiosperms" are both correct.

Sorry, I disagree.    International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, Art.
18.1:  "The name of a family is a plural adjective used as a substantive
..."   The name of a family is not, in my opinion, a collective noun.  It is
simply a plural.  Ordinarily, collective nouns are necessary because there
is a need to pluralize those concepts in turn, e.g., family, families;
people, peoples; herd, herds; etc.   We have no need to pluralize the
concept "Campanulaceae"; we cannot have two "Fagaceae-s".   The word
"Winteraceae" is plural, and as the subject of the two sentences above, it
takes a plural verb; the fact that the object of the second sentence
("family") is singular does not alter that fact.  Only if we make "family"
the subject, and Winteraceae a noun in apposition may we get away with a
singular verb ("The family Winteraceae is ...")

If anyone is ever silly enough to let me edit a journal, I shall enforce
this rule strictly!   ; - )


Thomas G. Lammers

Classification, Nomenclature, Phylogeny and Biogeography
of the Campanulaceae, s. lat.

Department of Botany
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 USA

e-mail:    tlammers at fmnh.org
office:          312-922-9410 ext. 317 (voice-mail)
home:     630-759-4280
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http:    www.fmnh.org/candr/academic_affairs/collection_report/cv_lammers.htm

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