Common names

[John Acorn]

Fellow Lepidopterophiles,

We just went through this same discussion not long ago on the dragonfly
listserver.  In general terms, here's what we found.  

First, pronunciation is probably the major impediment for most people when
it comes to learning Latin names-- they don't want to say things
incorrectly.

However, there is no one standard for Latin pronunciation.  In fact, there
are at least four:  Church Latin, Classical Latin, New Latin, and systems
intended for English-speaking people.  And yes, they do give dramatically
different results (some with all hard c's, some with all soft, and so on).

Bio Quip sells a book called "The Biologist's Handbook of Pronunciation" by
Jaeger, and I have a copy.  I'm afraid it won't help most of us, mind you,
since the suggested pronunciations are generally nothing like those that we
use here in North America.  It uses one of the systems for English speakers.

Sooo... as much as we would all like to be able to promote a universal
standard, it will only work on paper, unless the biological community
accepts one pronunciation system as the standard, which they have not.

But hey, feel free to argue about it for a while, and I predict that you
will convince yourself that this is indeed the case.

John Acorn