[Taxacom] ICBN (orthography of geographical epithets)

[Guido Mathieu]

ICBN Art. 60.9. says: 'The use of a hyphen in a compound epithet is treated as
an error to be corrected by deletion of the hyphen, unless the epithet is formed
of words that usually stand independently..."

How do we have to understand 'usually'? In which context (grammatically versus
geographically)?

How about the word 'rio'? It is grammatically a stand-alone substantive that
however, when used as a geographical locator, is 'usually' just a part of a
proper name. 
And how about 'san' and 'santa'?
These are also grammatically stand-alone substantives which however are
'usually' just part of a proper name that refers to a locality.
Epithets are usually not based on the stand-alone substantives 'rio' or 'san'
but on the geographical proper name as a whole.  

The above cases seem to be fundamentally different from the examples given in
Art. 60.9 Ex. 21: 'uva-ursi' or 'lacryma-jobi'... and according to the above
reasoning I tend to omit the hyphens in rio-blancoana and san-ramonensis. The
latter examples seem to be more close the costa-ricensis which is explicitly
cited as a correctable error in Ex. 20.  

Guido Mathieu.