Dialogue about the catalog

[Curtis Clark]

At 07:07 2002-06-21, Freek Vrugtman wrote:
>Around that time Philip Muntz of Flora of California fame visited the
>herbarium; over coffee I asked him how he pronounced botanical names; his
>reply: "It all depends where I am."

More than a decade ago, Armen Takhtajan of the Komarov Botanical Institute
visited Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and gave a seminar. Afterwards, he
asked that questioners pronounce scientific names in the European fashion,
because, even though he was quite fluent in English, he could not recognize
the names pronounced in the English fashion. Several of us in the audience
ended up "translating" the names for the rest.


--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department            Voice: +1 909 869 4062
California State Polytechnic University     FAX: +1 909 869 4078
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark at csupomona.edu