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

Sun Jun 25 16:17:53 CDT 2023

Dochterland,A baby can learn to speak Chinese in a few months, but it is still complex and confusing to me!Stephen    On Monday, 26 June 2023 at 09:08:05 am NZST, Dochterland via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:  

 Dear all,

I would like to add that gender agreement in classical languages is not “complex” or “confusing”. A twelve year old can master it in a few months time.

Cheers,

Jan

> Op 25 jun. 2023, om 23:02 heeft Francisco Welter-Schultes via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> het volgende geschreven:
> 
> Dear Jean-Michel,
> These are not gender issues, but spelling issues. Their regulations would remain untouched as they are now.
> 
> Francisco
> 
> Am 25.06.2023 um 18:20 schrieb Jean Michel Maes via Taxacom:
>> 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
>> Morpho Residency
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>> Pronto el correo jmmaes at ibw.com.ni <mailto:jmmaes at ibw.com.ni> dejara de funcionar.
>> -----Mensaje original-----
>> De: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu <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 <mailto: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 names will be costly and difficult, and gender agreement is an outdated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*
>> Wallace Correspondence Project: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwallaceletters.myspecies.info%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C6f09a38246dd410c3e1a08db75c1a70c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638233246829002511%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ML2h5UbG1uZy4hNjETQg2%2FgE%2BiLvdIq8XzxlDBg%2F4NE%3D&reserved=0 <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwallaceletters.myspecies.info%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C6f09a38246dd410c3e1a08db75c1a70c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638233246829002511%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ML2h5UbG1uZy4hNjETQg2%2FgE%2BiLvdIq8XzxlDBg%2F4NE%3D&reserved=0>
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>> ****************************************************************************
>> On Fri, 23 Jun 2023 at 17:30, Douglas Yanega via Taxacom <
>> taxacom at lists.ku.edu <mailto: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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