Taxacom: Hepialidae vs Epialidae

[Geoff Read]

Except the actual statement is more wishy-washy than that.

Also people seem able to read the first sentence and go 'ah hah, I'll
change that and cite 32.5.1 as justification' but apparently are unable to
read the second sentence ruling out thought-to-be bad latinizations done
in the mind of a past taxonomist with no evidence of inconsistency on the
pages. One has to be supremely self-confident to change today the
latinization decided upon from a past time when the Latin competency of
taxonomists was vastly greater.

A side issue relating to 32.5.1 is that last year there was a thread about
personal names as noun genitive species names, and whether they should be
corrected when the wrong gender ending was evident. The uncertainty seemed
to be partly whether a gender ending choice was a 'latinization'. Well in
my mind it is, thus the 32.5.1 2nd sentence rules out 'improving' them.

Geoff

On Tue, March 1, 2022 12:55 pm, Francisco Welter-Schultes via Taxacom wrote:
> Burmeister proposed to emend the spelling to Epialidae in 1878. This was
> never adopted.
> It was probably not because Burmeister was wrong, but because Hepialidae
> had been used by many authors since 1829, and taxonomists did not like
> to change it and start using a different spelling, so that the name
> would suddenly be found at a different place in an alphabetical list. In
> this epoch several hundred thousand animal names had been established
> and there were probably too many names where spellings were disputed,
> and where scientists had proposed more than one way of converting Greek
> names into Latin names.
>
> There was no Code at that time, but more or less commonly accepted rules
> which were later converted into written international rules. This
> international level was reached in 1905. These rules proved to be
> useful, and this might explain why 144 years later such a question can
> be answered by a clear and concise statement:
>
> "Incorrect transliterations, transcriptions, translations or
> latinizations are not to be corrected".
> (Based on ICZN Code, Art. 32.5.1)
>
> Best wishes
> Francisco
>
> Am 28.02.2022 um 06:05 schrieb John Grehan via Taxacom:
>> The term 'Epialidae' was never adopted. Was this because Burmeister was
>> wrong, or because of some overriding clause in the Code? I would be
>> grateful for any enlightenment as I am as dead as a doornail when it
>> comes
>> to such matters.

--
Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
gread at actrix.gen.nz