And what is in a name?

Anne Kilmer viceroy at anu.ie
Thu Jul 12 11:09:24 EDT 2001


John Shuey wrote:
> 
> Interestingly,  I wouldn't know what a grey gopher was if one hit me with a
> stick - But S. franklinii, commonly known to us (here in Indiana and the Midwest
> in general) is Franklin's Ground Squirrel, a state endangered species that we
> actually manage for at a couple of sites.   And yes they love to eat duck eggs -
> another attribute I admire.
> 
> Common names suck-
> 
> John
> ____
> John Shuey
> Director of Conservation Science
>
ah yes, gophers.
My grandfather, Frederick Frieseke, the painter, did a little memoir of
his childhood in Florida, lavishly illustrated. And my brother edited it
lately for publication, and wisely gave it to me for proofreading.
It fell to my lot to inform Nick, which he had not known, that in
Florida (1890) a gopher is a tortoise. A salamander, on the other hand,
is a gopher. If you follow me ... 
I am happy that this list has decided to use both scientific and
vernacular names; the former for clarity, the second for accessibility
to the handicapped, who are afraid of hard things and long words. 
Ah, the first butterfly for a week fluttered by ... Banog uaine .. a
green-veined white, Pieris napi. See how easy that was? But, if I had
stopped with the first name, in Irish, how frustrated most of you would
have been. 
As for "correct names" ... Ron has it easy. I was christened Anna Maria;
Catholics did it in Latin. My husband thinks my name is Mrs John Hillis.
The bank likes Anne Hillis, and you all know me as Anne Kilmer, my
maiden and professional name.
 It ain't hard to use both names and, with the mutability of scientific
names, at the mercy of lumpers and splitters, it's as well to do so. I
have my grandmother's butterfly book, from New Jersey, and once, looking
up a bug, I couldn't help noticing that I recognized neither common nor
scientific names for a lot of the critters. 
Anne Kilmer
Mayo, Ireland and South Florida
I heard the old men say, "everything changes and one by one we pass
away."


 
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