Latin phrase

[Stephen C. Carlson]

At 07:39 PM 5/5/2005 -0400, Richard Petit wrote:
>In a review published in 1842 there is a Latin phrase stated by the writer
>to be a "Linnaean canon."  I would like to know where in Linnaeus' work it
>might be found and also what it means.  The phrase is: "Nomina generica ab
>uno vocabulo generica fracto altero integro composita, indigna sunt."

Should the second "generica" be "generico"?  If so, I think it means
something like "Genus names compounded from one (part) a broken
genus term, the other a whole (genus term), are improper."

>In context it appears to be a criticism of a genus-group name being formed
>by the combination of two other genus-group names but a word for word
>translation doesn't make much sense.

The "uno ... altero ..." construction does not map very
cleanly to English.

Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Weblog:                              http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35