one way street

[Chris J. Durden]

Ron.
    Very well put. No-one has to put up with this kind of self defeating 
nonsense.
My present solution (on the Texas List, which is picky too) : I give 
scientific name, traditional common name (if there is one), then (in 
parentheses) the NABA name of the moment (if there is one). With all three 
laid out there is a possibility that some traditional knowledge may be 
picked up by accident by the NABA-only folks.
...................Chris Durden

At 04:33 PM 7/4/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>A week ago I got back about midnight from 12 hours of driving (total round
>trip) and 9 hours of doing Leps survey work for the Forest Service. It had
>been nearly 40 hours since I had had any sleep. Tired but wired, I decided
>to post a mere 9 species list on the carolina leps group. Knowing that most
>of the folks there like to use common names (something that I am just not
>in the habit of doing after 40 + years of working with butterflies) I dug
>out a book and furnished 5 of the nine with common names (one does not have
>a common name).  Well I got this nicely worded, but still terse,
>intolerant, and condescending post the next day asking me to please use
>common names with the scientific ones.  I wrote the person back that I try
>to do this as much as possible to be considerate of those not familiar with
>the correct (scientific) names. I told them I was a little perplexed by
>their post as I HAD furnished common names for most of the species - and
>went to extra effort to do so.
>
>I bit my tongue on wanting to ask if they ever wrote the people who only
>post common names asking them to please use the scientific ones also for
>the benefit of those who may not be familiar with the common ones. I did
>tell the individual that one problem I do have with common names is that
>many of the ones I know and have used for 40 years have now been changed to
>whatever the new groups want to call them - especially those which were
>named after collectors. (It is not that they were named after a person, but
>after a collector that they don't like.)
>
>Over the last couple of days some posts have come in that list species by
>neither common or correct names. I have seen this several times before and
>today have just had all of it I can take. The last two from two differnet
>persons were:  "lots of SSS skippers.."  and  " a LBJ skipper that.."  Who
>is supposed to know what these are other than some snoby little dumbded
>down click that likes to slam those who dare to use correct names? If this
>isn't a one way street I don't know what is.
>
>God forbid that I should email one of these individuals or GROUPS and ever
>suggest they be considerate and provide a-common-names-unfamiliar old timer
>like me with names I know  - or that one of the many subscribers to these
>lists from a foreign country dare to ask what the heck an LBJ skipper is.
>The only LBJ they probably know is a dead US president.
>
>This post is not about the use of common names or correct names. It is
>about a whole buss load of people who are just plain rude. They love to
>dish it out but can't take it. It is their way or the else. They are a
>majority and don't give a rats behind how others think (in scientific
>names), or what others like (collecting). They are subscribed to
>internationally open, public, chat groups and demand that everyone else use
>and understand their terms and only practice those activities that they
>approve of.  And if anyone turns the tables and points the mirror back at
>them, these cry out bloody murder and declare that anyone who questions
>them must be enemies of the environment.
>
>Of course, on the other hand, I can understand why they would want to say
>and write GSF rather than Great Spangled Fritillary, or GBS rather than
>Golden Banded Skipper. I don't say those common names either - they are too
>long. It is much easier for me to just say and write cybele or cellus. But
>that, is obviously either too difficult for them to say or understand - in
>spite of the fact that many of them are lawyers, doctors, and college
>grads.
>Ron
>
>
>
>
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