a funny coincidence (Re: Common Names please?)

[Doug Yanega]

This is amusing and ironic - over on bugnet, just a few minutes ago two
queries appeared asking for help about dragonflies (from students in the
same class, each evidently assigned a species to investigate). One asked
for help finding info on the "Spatterdock darner dragonfly" and the other
on the "Pygmy Snaketail Dragonfly", and expressed that they were having
difficulty. Small wonder, given that these names do NOT appear in the
primary scientific literature, as they are recently-coined "common" names
(I believe they exist in only a single recent field guide). It appears that
their teacher assumed that since the field guide said they were common
names, that they would serve just fine for the students. In reality,
without the scientific names, these poor students have no hope of finding
the information they need. Are we *really* doing the world a favor by
inventing more names?
Another posting in the same batch (another class assignment) asked for the
scientific name of "the common horse fly". This, I responded, is exactly
like asking for the scientific name of "the common bird". In both cases, we
have teachers who have no idea that what they're asking their students
simply makes no sense - all because of this idea of "common names".
I second Mike Soukup's suggestion, that henceforth the term "common name"
should be replaced by "nickname", so as to rid people of the notion that
there is necessarily ANYTHING common about the name. Ah, semantics...

Peace,

Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 31-499-2579, fax: 31-499-2567  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82