[Taxacom] Objective synonyms?

[Thomas Lammers]

----- Original Message -----
From: Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org>

> Tom and I are in agreement on this<

Mirabile dictu!
;-)

>>and I think he is probably as surprised as I by Stephen Thorpe calling a homotypic new  combination a subjective synonym.<<

I think I understand what he's thinking: the CLASSIFICATION (is it assigned to Genus A or Genus B?) is subjective.  But the NOMENCLATURE leaves no room for subjectivity: the two names are "the same" due to their homotypicity [neologism (c) T. G. Lammers].

As I said, a lot of us confuse the structure of classification with the mere labels used to denote it, probably because there IS a great deal of overlap.  Lord knows that *I* did so, until enough editors, reviewers, etc. reamed me out over it.  ("I'll never make THAT mistake again!")

Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.kewbooks.com/asps/ShowDetails.asp?id=615