[Nhcoll-l] [EXT]Re: vouchers

[Jean-Marc Gagnon]

John,

In French, I would use “specimen-témoin”, but my French-speaking friends from the “old continent” may have a better term.

Cheers,

Jean-Marc

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of John E Simmons
Sent: November 3, 2022 9:42 AM
To: Callomon,Paul <prc44 at drexel.edu>
Cc: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [EXT]Re: [Nhcoll-l] vouchers

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Just to add a note to Paul's excellent explanation--it may be useful to you to look at the origin of the word "voucher" to better understand its meaning.

Voucher comes from the Latin word vocare, which means "to call." The best definition for voucher in the Oxford English Dictionary is "a fact, circumstance, or thing to confirm or prove something," which is why we use voucher in the ways that Paul described, to refer to specimens that have been used in research to support the claims of the research. Voucher can also mean such things as to summon someone to court to give evidence, etc. But if you think of voucher as "a thing that confirms something," its meaning in the phrase voucher specimen is clear.

There is an equivalent word for voucher in Spanish, comprobante, but I have noticed that most Spanish speakers (at least those in Latin America) prefer to use the word voucher when referring to scientific specimens because it carries a more specific meaning and because it is derived from Latin, it is easily adapted to Spanish.

I am curious to know what a voucher specimen is called in other languages. German, French, Norwegian, Japanese, Chinese?

--John

John E. Simmons
Writer and Museum Consultant
Museologica
and
Associate Curator of Collections
Earth and Mineral Science Museum & Art Gallery
Penn State University
and
Investigador Asociado, Departamento de Ornitologia
Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima


On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 8:23 AM Callomon,Paul <prc44 at drexel.edu<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu>> wrote:
To “vouch for” something or someone means “to support their claim to truth”. If I vouch for your trustworthiness, I support your claim to that quality.

Voucher specimens also support claims to truth that are either published or in some way codified. For example: if I write a paper about mollusks from Bermuda, then all the specimens I mention in it become vouchers for that paper. In the future, anyone who is interested can look at them and see what I was working with.

Vouchers need not be for a published work, but usually refer to a defined study or event. All the material collected in a field survey, for example, are vouchers for that survey – even if nothing about it is published. They support the claim that the survey was carried out and that those species were collected.

Specimens in a general collection, even fine ones, are therefore not vouchers until someone has said something specifically about them or they belong to a named group such as material from an expedition.

A loose definition of “voucher”, then, might be “material evidence for a claim to truth”.

PC


Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
prc44 at drexel.edu<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170




From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of Lennart Lennuk
Sent: Thursday, November 3, 2022 3:03 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] voucher


External.
Hi!

Just to clear it up in my mind. What is word „voucher“ used for?
There is voucher specimens – that means top specimens of a certain species?
Then vouchers when we speak a parts of specimen, like feathers, bloodsamples – is it only in zoology?
And then also eDNA Voucher.

Sorry for a little messy wording.

Best regards!
Lennart Lennuk
Head of collections
Estonian Museum of Natural History
+372 6603404, 56569916

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