the word butterfly - reaction from Netherlands
Anne Kilmer
viceroy at gate.net
Wed May 6 11:46:10 EDT 1998
Bernard Landry wrote:
>
> Bonjour et merci à ceux qui ont répondu à mon message concernant les
> noms vernaculaires français pour "papillons de jour" et "papillons de
> nuit".
>
> Les termes Rhopalocera et Heterocera (ou leur équivalent français) sont
> des synonymes de "papillons de jour" et "papillons de nuit", mais
> j'avoue les utiliser rarement, car moins de gens savent ce qu'ils
> veulent dire exactement.
>
> J'arrive à la conclusion qu'il faut éviter les termes comme noctuelles,
> phalènes, teignes (ou mites) pour parler des Heterocera, car ces termes
> font respectivement référence aux Noctuidae, Geometridae, et Tineidae.
>
> Amitiés / Vriendelijke groet / kind regards
>
> Bernard
I wondered about that myself. If you call moths night-butterflies, then
the vast group of day-flying moths is sort of orphaned, isn't it?
As for your Rhopalocera and so forth, I never heard of them myself,
except on this list, and I don't think they're terms in common use here.
As used in my part of the States, leps (used by lovers only) refers to
all the lepidoptera; for the common man, butterflies refers to showy
leps, and moths are the plain-looking guys. Oddly, the Luna moth is
usually recognized as a moth. And of course the skippers confuse
everybody, but nobody notices them except people who care, anyway.
I know butterfly collectors who only see the big showy bugs, but deeply
love those moths.
We should perhaps coin a term for those butterfliers who graduate to a
love of nature, and fall in love with all the little guys. Well, I
suppose naturalist gets you there in this language.
Anne Kilmer
South Florida
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