Nectaring

[Michael Gochfeld]

John et al. 

	Copy editors are strange people entitled to their own professional 
beliefs, but we have hammered away successfully.  Your sounds like my
college English professor who said that nouns cannot be used as
adjectives. Thus  "kitchen door" is an unlawful uses of English.  He
didn't think it funny when I wrote "a jam of traffic". (He committed
suicide midway through my first semester). I hope it was nothing I said.

	We hammered away successfully at getting species names capitalized. 
I've argued before why they should be capitalized. Is a little wood
satry just a small wood satyr (no way for a reader to know). 

	I don't see any reason why our discipline can't coin the term "to
nectar". Maybe we have to send it in to the dictionary people for their
next edition. I vaguley remember seeing a call-for-new-words issued from
some publisher.
	 I wonder when the term "to benchmark" became acceptable. Anyway "Ohio"
is a great and valuable book and I don't recall being upset at the way
the editing worked out.

	Mike Gochfeld

John Shuey wrote:
> 
> When we were writing the "Butterflies and Skippers of Ohio" which was
> published as a reviewed monograph, our editor assured us that there was no
> verb - "to nectar".  Rather she documented that nectar is a noun, and that
> butterflies are often seen feeding at nectar sources.  Given her power over
> the monograph and its adherence to rigorous standards, she expunged all of
> our attempts to conjugate "to nectar" from the text, and replaced with more
> exacting use of the english language.  This placed feeding at nectar sources
> in the same category as feeding at rotting fruit,, feeding on carrion,
> feeding on fox feces, and so on.
> 
> While I'll admit that "fecesing" and "fruiting" don't ring my bell, I still
> like nectaring.  While I would not attempt to use it in a peer reviewed
> publication again, I do use it when writing for more general audiences.
> 
> John Shuey
> 
> ys-sedman at wiu.edu wrote:
> 
> > Lepidopterists, especially butterfly workers, often use the word
> > "nectaring" when butterflies appear to be feeding at a flower, and this
> > seems quite appropriate even if not always accurate.  Are other forms of
> > the verb used to describe butterfly activity?  Is it said that
> > butterflies have "nectared" in the past, etc.?
> >
> > Finally, what words are used when butterflies are seen on feces,
> > puddles, rotten fruit, carrion, etc. (puddling, etc.) and seem to be
> > taking up fluids?  Yale
> >
> > --
> 
> --
> John Shuey