Antennae vs. antennas

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

In a previous article, fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu (Kenelm Philip) says:

>	With exquisite timing, Jeffrey Glassberg (head of NABA) has just
>produced an editorial in the fall '98 issue of 'American Butterflies'
>entitled 'To Communicate or To Intimidate: That is the Question'. He
>suggests that the Latin-derived terminology of entomology exists, in
>part, to "set up entry barriers to outsiders."

I reserve the right to vehemently disagree with him.

>	With that concept in mind, he makes the following recommendations:
>
>What lepidopterists say			What they _should_ say
>
>Larva					Caterpillar (a more precise term)
>Oviposit				Lay eggs
>Proboscis				Tongue
>Antennae				Antennas

Every one of the above-quoted examples has its reason in biology.

While I don't want to bore everyone on this newsgroup with the reasoning, 
I do think the problem bears some probing.  The real problem is not the 
terminology, but the establishment's willingness to accept that science 
might have something worthwhile to say and its own "proprietary" way of 
saying it.  When one comes up against this condition, we all see the 
problem, ignorance, but are we willing to learn before saying something 
about it?  Many of us, interested enough to learn, do so, but there are 
those of us who are not willing to take the time and put out the effort.

>Glassberg's reasoning for recommending 'tongue' is worth quoting:
>
>	"Or, show a picture of a butterfly nectaring at a flower to a thou-
>sand people, and ask them what is that structure coming out of the butter-
>fly's mouth and probing the flower. Nine-hundred ninety-five people, in-
>cluding all the children, will answer, "a tongue." Ask a lepidopterist
>this question and they will answer, "a proboscis." "  He then points out
>that although a butterfly's proboscis is not homologous with a mammalian
>tongue, neither is it homologous with a mammalian proboscis.
>
>	What I note about this is Glassberg's remark about the structure
>"coming out of the butterfly's mouth". Not a very accurate description
>of the organs involved...
>
>	I suppose one could carry this further, and describe butterflys'
>legs, the longest segments of which are the 'thigh' and the 'shin', being
>attached to the 'chest'. Etc. The point Glassberg appears to be making is
>that people will become interested in butterflies more easily if they
>have to learn less to do so. (The NABA is also championing the cause of
>standardized 'common' names for butterflies.)
>
>	When I look at the non-scientific things that people get deeply
>interested in, I see something different. I see that people are willing,
>indeed eager, to learn as many abstruse things about their interests as
>they can. Listen to people disgorging baseball statistics, or arcane
>data about cars. I am not sure that 'dumbing down' a subject is the best
>way to increase interest. I think Glassberg is going at it backwards, so
>to speak. People who are seriously interested in a subject will not cavil
>at picking up its voabulary--all we need do is make that information
>easily accessible.

Ken, your point is well taken.  This can be traced to a lack of 
willingness to teach real science in schools except to science majors.  
The result is that the public at large does not appreciate science in 
general, and, as a consequence, when some situation comes along that 
requires some knowledge of science, said knowledge is not there.

No, Jeff, dumbing down is a stupid way to approach the situation - and don't 
bother wasting your time denying that is what you are doing, because that 
won't wash in the long run.  Ken is right.  In fact, anyone who has any 
inkling of what science does any why will realize the value of those 
supposedly "arcane" or "obsolete" scientific names and then take the 
trouble to follow through and learn at least a few of them.  Likewise, 
those who are genuinely interested in biology will realize that they are 
set up in such a way that all those with the same generic name are 
related at the same level (meaning that all Manducas are related - 
supposedly - within some set of criteria, as are all tabanids, and so 
on).  Although the criteria will vary more or less between taxa and from 
one taxonomic level to the next, the basic idea is still there.  Will you 
find that classification in common names?  Not a chance.  Want an 
example?  The gulf fritillary is a paricularly blatant one: it is not 
even a fritillary at all, but only looks like one.  Thanks to its common 
name, I never learned that until I was in college (I should say here that 
I became interested in entomology around age 6, when we had a passionvine 
covering our backyard fence and they came to it.  That was 1949, two 
whole decades almost to the day before I set foot in Harvey Kirk's field 
biology class at Santa Monica College.)!
-- 
Pierre Plauzoles   ae779 at lafn.org
Canoga Park, California