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

[Stephen Thorpe]

The use of authority/date in gardens and popular literature is pointless, which is probably in part why author/date is optional. It has it's place, though, and I think there would be a riot if it were taken out of taxonomic literature, and I think a taxonomic database without them would be a joke ...

What species are you?
I'm Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758! :)
________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of dipteryx at freeler.nl [dipteryx at freeler.nl]
Sent: Thursday, 3 September 2009 7:14 p.m.
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

Van: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu namens Jim Croft
Verzonden: do 3-9-2009 8:14

>... 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.

***
Yes, as a general rule, this is quite true. Of course there are
cases in the literature where homonyms have created confusion,
and the users could theoretically have avoided their problems
by looking closely at authorship, but as these users do not do
that anyway (and tend to get even more confused if they do try)
it is pretty much theoretical anyway.

Paul
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