Fwd: Re: Fwd: PhyloCode names

[Curtis Clark]

At 01:21 PM 10/23/00, Philip Cantino wrote:
>Adding a symbol to
>names, the approach I have favored, does not have this disadvantage,
>because no one would try to pronounce the symbol.

There is some precedent. Binomials are rendered in English text as italics,
and a recent ICBN suggests italics for higher ranks as well. Italics
constitute "markup", but in ASCII environments such as email, they are
often rendered as _underscores_ bracketing the word italicized. Phil's
suggestion of a /slash (and I presume no italics) provides an indicator
that is independent of markup, and which can be as easily rendered in plain
text as in styled text. When manuscripts are routinely composed and stored
in XML, it will be fairly simple to find all instances of /slashed names
and add appropriate structure tags, e.g.
<phyloname>/Asteraceae</phyloname>. It's a shame he was voted down.

--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
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