common names post 578

[Ron Gatrelle]

Ernest,
Your personal post prompted some thoughts that I wanted to share with the
wider audience. So here goes.
RG

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ernest Mengersen" <emengersen at admin.oldscollege.ab.ca>
To: <gatrelle at tils-ttr.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: common names

> That was my whole point Ron.  Names are just communication tools and one
uses the name they feel most comfortable with.  Neither common names nor
"scientific names" are stable!!!  They change for many reasons.  What I
have come to hate most is the snooty attitude of the....
-big snip
...I think I mentioned in my note it is the attitude we develop when using
the  different names that is totally beyond me.
-big snip
> Ernest

>> "Ron Gatrelle" <gatrelle at tils-ttr.org> 04/22/01 01:54PM >>>
-big snip
My beef with the common names movement is that it genders less knowledge
not more. (Common names may indeed gender more general interest but not
knowledge - especially since the Gurus of this are against subspecies being
given common names.)....
>> Ron

new message

    Ernest,
    This is what is good about people talking with each other and not just
at each other. This is because it eventually gets down to understanding the
other party as each rephrases and emphasizes what they are really trying to
communicate.
    In reading your last post and then mine again, you helped me to see my
real
problem and why I have not communicated it very well.  I think you and I
are actually saying the same thing. That is, we are both bothered not by
the mere use of common or Latinized names, but the way clicks of people use
them relative to their own agendas.
    While you are referring to the snooty attitude of "professionals", I am
referring to the snooty attitude of "amateurs".   Now, neither bad attitude
is actually endemic to either - as there are plenty of "professionals"
(PhDs like yourself) who regularly use common names and "amateurs" (non
degreed like me) who regularly use Latinized names - just because that is
what each individual is familiar with and thus relates to.
    Through your last post I see I have miscommunicated to everyone on the
subject of "Common Names".  In actuality I have no beef with common names
at all. I've been trying to say I have a complaint with their current
"use". What I
have meant is their use 1) as limited to species only and 2) usage at the
elimination of Latinized names.

broader comments   *(footnote)
    The "dumbing down" is because subspecies are not named, and thus not
mentioned - by any name. Most of the world's taxa are subspecies. The
dumbing down is in many of the "guide" books I see being put out that
ignore subspecies. To me, no indepth taxonomic knowledge is needed to write
these books. They look more like fadish money makers than publications to
fill informational voids - as the same information was in the last book.
(Klots was the last great leps guide in my opinion.) Hey, that's just how
it seems to me  ;-)
(There are several real good new books out there too - like Gochfeld's.)
    Note how in my last post I referred to "My beef with the common names
_movement_."  In that rather passing comment I revealed my real problem -
not the names - but their restricted use - by a movement of people who seem
to have decided for the rest of us that subspecies don't matter, and thus
don't need names as we don't need to know about them.
    The reality here is that these subspecies do exist in nature (if not in
their books) and already have names ( Latinized). Since there is now a void
of subspecific common names, or at least usage, I have been posting about
"common names". Naturally, a reader would easily come away with the idea
that I was anti common names for anti common names sake. No so at all. I
see now that my aversion is a backlash to the snobbish elitist restricted
non-use and/or non-creation of them!!
     My apologies to butterfly common names as you are not a problem. I
have been picking on you and all the  time it has been your master I should
have been impugning. You are not dumbed down or dumb. You are simply a term
for the people of your language to use in communicating about an organism.
This is evident as I have said all along that there is a place for you
especially with beginners and in everyday conversation.
    My disdain should have gone out to those  who deprive the rest of us of
knowledge - by their refusal to use any names in any language (Latinized or
common) for the thousands of described subspecific taxa. By doing so they
are depriving us of (or making it much harder to find out the) knowledge we
need about the organisms we are so interested in.
    This of course reminds me of the motto on The International Lepidoptera
Survey.  "We can not protect that which we do not know." And you know what,
lepidopterists will try to protect that which they know needs it. So either
give us the existent Latinized names - not because we need the Latin - but
because we need and want to know. Or, create and use common names for these
organisms - not because common names are any better or worse - but because
we want to know these things exist, where they are, and what their status
is in the wild.

EVERYDAY SHOULD BE EARTH DAY. TELL US MORE ABOUT ITS HABITANTS AND THEIR
NEEDS - NOT LESS.   WE WANT TO KNOW.   FEEL FREE TO USE ANY  WORDS YOU
WANT - BUT TELL US.

Ron Gatrelle

*All of the above relates to words/names for sake of communication. None of
the above changes the fact that the "official" identifies of all the
world's organisms are overseen and regulated by the rules of the applicable
international scientific bodies. Like medical drugs, they may have many
different generic (common) names, but in writing a subscription the
technical scientific terms for the material composition is, and must be,
universal.

Common names are not functional, and are thus not allowed, in the technical
scientific arena. Sorry, members only there. This has nothing to do with
elitism - just common sense.

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