[Taxacom] More on Linnaeus

[Curtis Clark]

On 2013-09-05 1:07 AM, Paul van Rijckevorsel wrote:
> The epithet was not so much an afterthought as it was an independent
> device to find species quickly. It was a mnemonic / typographical
> device, and as such not unusual, but rather quite traditional. It is the
> use to which these epithets were put that was new, being combined
> with the generic name to become a two-part species name.

On 2013-09-05 7:19 AM, Richard Jensen wrote:
> My understanding is that the specific epithet was intended, as Paul
> suggests, as a mnemonic shorthand device to  eliminate the need to writing
> for the much longer polynomials.  See "Svenson, H.K., 1945. On the
> descriptive method of Linnaeus. Rhodora
> 47, 273–302".

By "afterthougjt" I meant that it was not his central goal. In modern 
times, for most book authors the index is literally an afterthought, 
despite there being a long tradition of books having indices, and 
despite the fact that scholarly books without indices are routinely 
panned by book reviewers. For many salient reasons, no one writes the 
index first.

-- 
Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4140
Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768