Gillett's Checkerspot

Ron Gatrelle gatrelle at tils-ttr.org
Fri Oct 27 04:43:03 EDT 2000


Reply from Ron to Ken (et al).
    Being a person who makes his living from words and communication, one of
the most profound things I ever heard was. _The problem with  communication
is that people think it occurred._  I did not say, or intend to infer, that
you or Kondla said that adding an e was correct. I've not read you having
said that. In fact this whole discourse began with Kondla poo pooing the use
of the term Gillette's. I jumped in with two points. One is that gilletti is
the correct scientific spelling -- at least it is not incorrect. And two, I
would like to know who it was that said a common name and English name are
some how distinct -- which made Gillette's a fine usage. I would still like
to hear the reasoning behind this. As I said before, what am I missing here?
    Kondla referred to this unknown party when he posted _a kind person has
pointed out that these [Gillette's & Gillett's] are actually English names
rather than common names. My response to this was a question about what did
I miss here -- I don't get it.
    These are also group postings and not personal messages per se. So there
is often verbal addressee cross-over taking place in these (at least my)
postings. I see this medium as a channel for the exchange of ideas,
opinions, and subjectively assumed facts. If I wanted to talk to, or get
into it, with someone I'd send them a personal e-mail. In fact, for the last
several lines I have been speaking not to Ken but to who ever is reading
this. And not only that, I have been sending a subliminal message that some
of you take (and aim) some of this stuff way too personally.
(In my next remarks I am not talking to Ken at all.)
As far as your comments about NABA and Glassberg go... Well see, here we go
again with this dumbing-down thing that started about 20 years ago. Humm.
OK, I will say this. A scientific name is nothing more than a common name
converted into classical Latin. A person is pretty dumb if they don't know
that. Rosa alba. Gee, what would the common name for this be. Let's get a
bunch of plant nerds from the Smithsonian to figure it our. This is tough,
so we better pay them too. Woah doggies (for those in Japan that is not
_stop the canines_, it is a sarcastic American way of saying _these people
must be idiots_). Woah doggies, they decided to call it the Almost Pink.
Sorry, the common name is White Rose.  Euphyes berryi - Berry's skipper. I
am not personally worked up. I am pragmatically employing truth in a
taunting manner to see if I can smoke out the... This is too long.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenelm Philip" <fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu>
To: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 3:28 AM
Subject: Gillett's Checkerspot


>
> > How can adding an *e* to Gillett be somehow correct?
>
> Neither Kondla nor I was proposing any such thing, nor said anything that
> would lead someone who read the postings to think we were. As far as it
> appears from available data, the correct English name is Gillett's
> Checkerspot--unless someone can show that Barnes actually named the
> species after someone named Gillette, which seems improbable because
> the final 'e' would have then appeared within the scientific name.
>
> My own ruminations on the ICZN are not relevant to the English
> name.
>
> It is true that NABA prefers not to use patronymic English names,
> and also (from a phone conversation with Glassberg) prefers that English
> names not be tightly linked to scientific names (allowing them, in theory,
> to be 'more stable' than scientific names). But I doubt NABA would use
> that reasoning to justify _misspelling_ the English name...  :-)
>
> Ken Philip
> fnkwp at uaf.edu
>
>
>
>
>
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