[Taxacom] FW: Unnamed

Tue May 31 10:56:43 CDT 2011

Thanks Jim-I just remembered two of my favorite taxonomy-relevant George
Carlin quotes:

"There should be some things we don't name, just so we can sit around
all day and wonder what they are."

and

"The nicest thing about anything is not knowing what it is."

Amanda

Amanda K. Neill |  Director of the Herbarium (BRIT-SMU-VDB) |  BRIT
<http://www.brit.org/>  |  817.546.1842 |  817.332.4112 fax  |  BRIT.org
<http://www.brit.org/>   | 1700 University Dr., Fort Worth, TX
76107-3400 USA | Think Before You Print

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Beach, James H
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 7:46 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Unnamed

Despite the probability than a some percentage of Taxacom readers may
have read this back in 1985, this is too good and relevant not to share
with all of you already over taxed subscribers.

She Unnames Them

Ursula K. Le Guin

The New Yorker, 21 January 1985

MOST of them accepted namelessness with the perfect indifference with
which they

had so long accepted and ignored their names. Whales and dolphins, seals
and sea

otters consented with particular alacrity, sliding into anonymity as
into their

element. A faction of yaks, however, protested. They said that "yak"
sounded

right, and that almost everyone who knew they existed called them that.
Unlike

the ubiquitous creatures such as rats and fleas, who had been called by
hundreds

or thousands of different names since Babel, the yaks could truly say,
they

said, that they had a name. They discussed the matter all summer. The
councils

of elderly females finally agreed that though the name might be useful
to others

it was so redundant from the yak point of view that they never spoke it

themselves and hence might as well dispense with it. After they
presented the

argument in this light to their bulls, a full consensus was delayed only
by the

onset of severe early blizzards. Soon after the beginning of the thaw,
their

agreement was reached and the designation "yak" was returned to the
donor.

Among the domestic animals, few horses had cared what anybody called
them since

the failure of Dean Swift's attempt to name them from their own
vocabulary.

Cattle, sheep, swine, asses, mules, and goats, along with chickens,
geese, and

turkeys, all agreed enthusiastically to give their names back to the
people to

whom-as they put it-they belonged.

A couple of problems did come up with pets. The cats, of course,
steadfastly

denied ever having had any name other than those self-given, unspoken,
ineffably

personal names which, as the poet named Eliot said, they spend long
hours daily

contemplating although none of the contemplators has ever admitted that
what they

contemplate is their names and some onlookers have wondered if the
object of

that meditative gaze might not in fact be the Perfect, or Platonic,
Mouse. In

any case, it is a moot point now. It was with the dogs, and with some
parrots,

lovebirds, ravens, and mynahs, that the trouble arose. These verbally
talented

individuals insisted that their names were important to them, and flatly
refused

to part with them. But as soon as they understood that the issue was
precisely

one of individual choice, and that anybody who wanted to be called
Rover, or

Froufrou, or Polly, or even Birdie in the personal sense, was perfectly
free to

do so, not one of them had the least objection to parting with the
lowercase

(or, as regards German creatures, uppercase) generic appellations
"poodle,"

"parrot," "dog," or "bird," and all the Linnaean qualifiers that had
trailed

along behind them for two hundred years like tin cans tied to a tail.

The insects parted with their names in vast clouds and swarms of
ephemeral

syllables buzzing and stinging and humming and flitting and crawling and

tunnelling away.

As for the fish of the sea, their names dispersed from them in silence

throughout the oceans like faint, dark blurs of cuttlefish ink, and
drifted off

on the currents without a trace.

NONE were left now to unname, and yet how close I felt to them when I
saw one of

them swim or fly or trot or crawl across my way or over my skin, or
stalk me in

the night, or go along beside me for a while in the day. They seemed far
closer

than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear
barrier: so

close that my fear of them and their fear of me became one same fear.
And the

attraction that many of us felt, the desire to feel or rub or caress one

another's scales or skin or feathers or fur, taste one another's blood
or flesh,

keep one another warm or that attraction was now all one with the fear,
and the

hunter could not be told from the hunted, nor the eater from the food.

This was more or less the effect I had been after. It was somewhat more
powerful

than I had anticipated, but I could not now, in all conscience, make an

exception for myself. I resolutely put anxiety away, went to Adam, and
said,

"You and your father lent me this-gave it to me, actually. It's been
really

useful, but it doesn't exactly seem to fit very well lately. But thanks
very

much! It's really been very useful."

It is hard to give back a gift without sounding peevish or ungrateful,
and I did

not want to leave him with that impression of me. He was not paying much

attention, as it happened, and said only, "Put it down over there,
O.K.?" and

went on with what he was doing.

One of my reasons for doing what I did was that talk was getting us
nowhere, but

all the same I felt a little let down. I had been prepared to defend my

decision. And I thought that perhaps when he did notice he might be
upset and

want to talk. I put some things away and fiddled around a little, but he

continued to do what he was doing and to take no notice of anything
else. At

last I said, "Well, goodbye, dear. I hope the garden key turns up."

He was fitting parts together, and said, without looking around, "O.K.,
fine,

dear. When's dinner?"

"I'm not sure," I said. I'm going now. With the-" I hesitated, and
finally said,

"With them, you know," and went on out. In fact, I had only just then
realized

how hard it would have been to explain myself. I could not chatter away
as I

used to do, taking it all for granted. My words must be as slow, as new,
as

single, as tentative as the steps I took going down the path away from
the

house, between the dark-branched, tall dancers motionless against the
winter

shining.

-------------------------

James H. Beach

Biodiversity Institute

1345 Jayhawk Boulevard

University of Kansas

Lawrence, KS 66044

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