Common Names please?

[Neil Jones]

In message <Pine.OSF.3.96.981005034446.26345B-100000 at aurora.alaska.edu> Kenelm Philip writes:
> 
> 	I have watched with some interest as the common name issue became
> somewhat contentious on this list. My interest in butterflies dates back
> to 1938--and essentially everyone I talked with about butterflies from
> that time until a few years ago used scientific names as a matter of
> course. Some of the true vernacular common names (like 'Monarch' and
> 'Mourning Cloak') were used in casual conversation, but I have seldom
> heard anyone actually using the so-called 'common names' for North
> American arctic butterflies in conversation.
> 
> 	I was aware that in the UK the common names were used more often
> than the scientific names by many butterfly enthusiasts.

Once again I'm finding myself in agreement with Ken.

The study of butterflies is rather an old one here and common names have
been in use for hundreds of years Moses Harris was using them in his
book The Aurelian in 1766 but some of them are  very different to those
in use today. He called Nymphalis antiopa "Grand Surprise" rather than
Camberwell Beauty which is the usual UK name now.
The Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) was a Royal William and the Marsh Fritillary
(Eurodryas aurinia) was a Dishclout.
The common names of some other species have varied over time also.
Pyronia tithonus is now known either as the Hedge Brown or the Gatekeeper but
has at various times been called Small Meadow Brown, Hedge Eye or even Large
Heath. The latter name being now used for Coenonympha tullia

The study of butterflies goes back further than this. The first published work
being by James Petiver in 1717. (He famously illustrated an example of
a strange butterfly taken at Hampstead, now part of London. This has now been 
identified as Junonia villida. A species our Australian  colleagues know as
the Meadow Argus.)

> 3) Most of us come to this field ignorant of both scientific _and_ common
> names of most species of butterflies. If we are as interested in butter-
> flies as we seem to be, is it too much trouble to learn both for the limited
> fauna that we normally encounter? Except for people in the southern US,
> or those in the arctic, most of us are dealing with from 150 to 300 species
> --not an insuperable problem. I do not use common names myself in my work--
> but I have a copy of two common name lists on hand so I can look them up if
> needed. Both of these also give scientific names.

What is happening is that the study of butterflies is being popularised.
This means that people have devised common names to make the study more
accessible to those frightened off by the Latin and Greek.
The thing is nobody knows how to pronounce them anyway. Even English
pronounciation is not standardised. The word "fritillary" is pronounced
differently depending on which side of the Atlantic you live.
(I recently heard of a film set in the Scottish city of Glasgow being
subtitled for the American market because otherwise it would be
incomprehensible, despite the fact that the characters were all speaking
English.)


> 6) Anyone whose interest in butterflies spreads to include the Holarctic
> region is going to _have_ to learn the scientific names.
> 
> 7) This is not an elitist conspiracy to keep people from knowing what's
> being talked about. Even the latest butterfly field guides (as the Opler
> revision of the Peterson Guide to Eastern Butterflies) includes scientific
> names along with common names. The information is available to all.

Of course it isn't an elitist conspiracy. It is just asking people to be 
clear in what they are saying. This is an international forum and we all
try to use reasonably standard English when communicating. We all have local
dialects but we try to make our English as easy to understand as possible.
If I were to write "like what some people do speak , by 'ere where I do come
from, nobody would never understand nothin' I was writin' like."
Using the scientific name is just being helpful to people from 
other countries.

The other point I would make is that a scientific name is often
more precise and it will often give foreign readers a better visualisation
of what the creature looks like, even if it is a species  with which
they are not immediately familiar.

-- 
Neil Jones- Neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk http://www.nwjones.demon.co.uk/
"At some point I had to stand up and be counted. Who speaks for the
butterflies?" Andrew Lees - The quotation on his memorial at Crymlyn Bog
National Nature Reserve