taxons and orthography

[Richard Jensen]

I hate to disagree with my colleague Tom Lammers, but my view is that
taxonomic names are collective nouns and, when referred to as a single
entity (e.g., the Asteraceae), take a singular verb:  The Asteraceae is
circumscribed by...  I know that Asteraceae is a plural form in Latin, but
we are not using Latin, we are using English.  Therefore, the rules of
English dictate the proper usage.

This is at least the third time this thread has come up - I believe that
the last set of exchanges occurred in Fall, 1998.

Cheers,
Dick

Richard J. Jensen      |   E-MAIL: rjensen at saintmarys.edu
Dept. of Biology       |   TELEPHONE: 219-284-4674
Saint Mary's College   |   FAX: 219-284-4716
Notre Dame, IN  46556  |