Taxacom: demystifying gender agreement ( was Re: Removals of offending scientific names)

Richard Zander Richard.Zander at mobot.org
Sun Jun 25 12:34:42 CDT 2023


Hmmm. Does Esperanto have gender in its nouns? Wikipedia says sor of: 
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGender_reform_in_Esperanto&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Ceadba5e3c60248dc37b808db75a2795e%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638233112919425035%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gFP2b8IzeU8lGwXWm%2BOwIb3uXu%2BmsLYoixFSz9BGuqU%3D&reserved=0 No hope there.

We could make up a language, Themish. 


-------
Richard H. Zander
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-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Jean Michel Maes via Taxacom
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2023 11:21 AM
To: 'George Beccaloni' <g.beccaloni at gmail.com>; 'Douglas Yanega' <dyanega at gmail.com>; 'taxacom' <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: demystifying gender agreement ( was Re: Removals of offending scientific names)

If we go back to the gender of the original publication , to get only one label for each species, what did we do with capitals (Deyrollei), "-"
(Wentzell-Heckmannae) or special characters ?

JM



Dr. Jean-Michel Maes
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Pronto el correo jmmaes at ibw.com.ni dejara de funcionar.


-----Mensaje original-----
De: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu] En nombre de George Beccaloni via Taxacom Enviado el: viernes, 23 de junio de 2023 10:43
Para: Douglas Yanega
CC: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
Asunto: Re: Taxacom: demystifying gender agreement ( was Re: Removals of offending scientific names)

If species names are just labels/unique identifiers, and the original published name is the most important, and gender agreement is complex to get right and is confusing to amateurs etc, and making a massive list of all names will be costly and difficult, and gender agreement is an outdated practise from a previous era, and gender agreement might not be regarded as 'inclusive' in this day and age, then its seems like a jolly good idea to get rid of it and revert to the original published names!

George


****************************************************************************
*Dr George Beccaloni FLS*
*Director, Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project*

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On Fri, 23 Jun 2023 at 17:30, Douglas Yanega via Taxacom < taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> On 6/22/23 8:37 PM, John Grehan wrote:
> > I am not as acquainted with all the experts out there that have 
> > commented on this issue, but for the World Catalogue of Hepialidae 
> > (hopefully published within a week or two at most) the authors 
> > followed a precedent set by some past major players in hepialid 
> > taxonomy and used the original form of the species name, regardless 
> > of whether correct in the first place, or now in a genus with a 
> > different gender. Keeps life simple, and as far as I am concerned, 
> > quite comprehensible.
>
> In principle, that could be true - about it keeping things simple - 
> but in practice, it does not seem to work that way.
>
> The principle relies on all lepidopterists, and all other taxonomists 
> using lepidopteran names, having access to a single authoritative 
> master list of names (otherwise, people would need to each have access 
> to copies of the original literature). In practice, there are LOTS of 
> different sources for lep names, and they are very commonly in 
> conflict with one another, here and there. The same species can have 
> two different spellings scattered throughout the literature, as well 
> as online sources, and that is not "keeping it simple".
>
> The very first butterfly name I looked up just now - a butterfly I 
> learned as "Mitoura gryneus" several decades ago - is one that stuck 
> in my head as a budding entomologist because it was the very first 
> time in my life I had learned a scientific name that was explained to 
> me as being a gender mismatch, and when I first learned that 
> lepidopterists didn't use gender agreement. The noteworthy thing about 
> it is that if you do a verbatim Google search, you can find hundreds 
> of sources that have "Mitoura gryneus", hundreds more that have 
> "Mitoura grynea", hundreds more that have "Callophrys gryneus", and 
> hundreds more that have "Callophrys grynea".
>
> That does not at all look simple to me, and *that's just the first 
> name I looked up*. I'm willing to wager that if there are other common 
> leps with obvious gender mismatches, that they'll have a very high 
> probability of appearing in the literature with multiple conflicting 
> spellings.
>
> This exemplifies EXACTLY why I advocate for a single authoritative 
> master list. No system of gender agreement, even ZERO gender 
> agreement, is going to ensure that everyone, everywhere, is on the 
> same page unless there is a single shared resource that everyone uses 
> to obtain the proper spelling. When everyone does their own 
> independent research, people can come to different conclusions, 
> leading to inconsistency. If the master list gives the spelling 
> variants, *and tells you when to use which variant*, then there is no
reason not to keep gender agreement.
> Both approaches - keeping gender agreement or abandoning it - at
> *that* point would require exactly the same amount of effort: typing a 
> name into a search engine linked to a list, and following the result.
>
> It's called "having our cake and eating it too".
>
> Peace,
>
> --
> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
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