[Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

[Jim Croft]

I am Jim Croft (aka James Reginald Croft, aka Kim Croft to his family,
aka all maner of unpublishable appellations to his staff and
colleagues).  The one born in Toorak Melbourne Australia on 28 May
1951.  The bureaucrat botanist, not the hellfire and brimstone Baptist
minister, not the peace out hippie bookbinder.

My name is not "Jim Croft (Toorak) 1951" - although it could be argued
the implied information content is a little bit less ambiguous

When it comes to names, plants and animals are no different... If you
need to other information to sort out the use of the name, store and
manage that information.  But don't glue it to the name.  Because you
will never have enough and the end result will be unusable and
unenforceable.

I have had numerous arguments about this at the ANBG, saying that the
use of author names on labels and other materials in the Gardens is a
waste of time and space.  Other than a pathetically pretentious
attempt to look scientific it serves no useful purpose.  The only
people who need to invoke this information are nomenclaturalists when
they need to sort out which name to apply to which taxon.  Once that
is done and documented, no-one needs to see it.  Especially not the
public.

jim


On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 8:25 AM, Stephen Thorpe<s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> Note that the author/date are in the name field (as they are in any sensible taxonomic database), implying that they are part of the name in some meaningful sense, despite an overly pedantic interpretation of the Code denying this! I guess one of the many inconsistencies in the Code is that it says author/date isn't part of the name, but then treats it as part of the name in many contexts...

-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
... in pursuit of the meaning of leaf ...
... 'All is leaf' ('Alles ist Blatt') - Goethe