Taxacom: Latin

Wed Jun 28 10:30:44 CDT 2023

Hi Doug,

So you are advocating leaving gender agreement in the Code and not allowing
a vote on it... All you are proposing is to make it easier for people to
genderise names... As I and others have argued, gender agreement is an
outmoded practice which serves absolutely no USEFUL function. It makes a
mockery of the concept of species-group names being unique identifiers.
Reverting to the original spelling would be easy to do, and once it had
been done, the spellings of the names would never, ever have to change - to
much rejoicing by many taxonomists and people involved in bioinformatics.
At last we would have unique identifiers! At last, we wouldn't need to
spend unnecessary time and effort recording the genders of names in our
databases, and have the burden of recording future changes to them made in
the name of gender agreement!

I fear that if there is opposition to such a relatively minor change to the
Code, that nothing more wide ranging and radical (like having one Code for
all of life) is ever likely to happen.

Best wishes,

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

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****************************************************************************

On Wed, 28 Jun 2023 at 16:09, Douglas Yanega via Taxacom <
taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> On 6/27/23 11:51 PM, Mark D. Scherz via Taxacom wrote:
> > It should read ‘in principle, in most cases, if you have a good working
> > knowledge of Latin declensions…’. George pointed out that this knowledge
> is
> > not widespread. So far I have only seen numbers on the US here. In the
> UK,
> > less than 3% of students have Latin in school. In Germany, less than 5%
> and
> > declining. And these are countries with long traditions of classics; most
> > of the world has less than this. I’d be very interested to know the stats
> > on Latin teaching in India and China. The point being, this ability,
> while
> > achievable, is available to a privileged few.
> >
> > I prefer the up-front investment of time to discuss it here, if it could
> > potentially save time in the future.
>
> Then I'll reiterate what I've been advocating:
>
> We (the ICZN) leave the rules in place, but provide two things that
> would *completely eliminate the need for anyone to learn or understand
> Latin or Greek*:
>
> (1) We provide a single official list of all genus names and their
> genders. Contrary to what others here have claimed, we do *already* have
> an essentially complete list of genus names (ambiregnal, not just
> zoology; see the IRMNG), and the genders are known for a substantial
> number of them. Coordinating efforts to get the list "fleshed out" are
> under way. This is pretty readily attainable.
>
> (2) We provide a single official list that explains which species
> epithets are declinable adjectives and which ones are ambiguous.
> Anything not on the list is treated as a noun, and never changes
> spelling. This is a little trickier to organize, but should also be
> attainable. For example, I've personally screened over 200,000
> species-group names, which is over 10% of all zoological names - and
> other researchers have done the same for their groups.
>
> Again, we agree that there is no justification for *compelling*
> taxonomists to learn Latin or Greek, not because gender agreement is an
> outdated practice or unnecessary, but because a taxonomist does not need
> to know Latin or Greek to *look a name up in a list*.
>
> Would you support the implementation of such a system?
>
> Remember, we are aware that people don't like the status quo, and we are
> also aware that completely reverting to original spellings for all names
> is not an option. We want people to consider reasonable alternatives.
>
> Further, the only thing taxonomists are *actually* compelled to do under
> the ICZN is to read the original description in the 8% of cases that are
> ambiguous and fall under Article 31.2.2. Even that 8% may ultimately be
> an overestimate, if we decide to follow the example of the botanists and
> decide that certain ambiguous terms/suffixes are going to be ALWAYS be
> treated arbitrarily as nouns, even when they have some historical usage
> as adjectives (and vice-versa, for certain names that we decide should
> ALWAYS be treated arbitrarily as adjectives, like the epithet "alba").
> In fact, by creating an official list, we could *potentially* eliminate
> Article 31.2.2 entirely, and have NO ambiguous names, *and* eliminate
> the need to consult original descriptions.
>
> 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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>    "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>          is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> about 36 years, 1987-2023.
>