Re: Genetive Emendations (Khaan mckennai, etc.)

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Daniel Bensen (dbensen@gotnet.net) wrote:

<So what this means is, for all intents and purposes, Latin is
no longer the language to be used when giving linnaean names to
newly discovered species. Biologists may still use Latin if they
choose, but if they are not forced to, most new species will be
given Latin-ish names, but nothing that actually makes any
sense.  I don't implore this fact (there are only so many
pertinent Latin names, anyway) but why don't we just give in and
give newly discovered species English names?>

  Huh. You ignored the first sentence, didn't you? sorry, bud
... Latin has never been the official language of taxonomy, nor
Greek. They are classically used, and are recommended and
stemmed in Latin (as also stated in the ICZN (3rd ed.)) but the
new provision in the 3rd edition was used to preserve people
from applied emmendation after another without really paying
attention to the name. If you want *Paralotitan* or *K.
mckennae*, go have fun and do it. Use them. It'll be the same as
saying, after 11 years of being coined and 9 of being used, that
it should be Manuraptora instead.

  Problem is, the stems will be ignored. Keep in mind one thing:
no one has ever opted that this set of names and "vulgarly
displeasing phraseology and grammar" be the norm. However, the
ICZN now allows names to be formed in any language, as long as
an etymology is supplied. Hence, non-Latin *Khaan* gets used....
have a problem with it, take it up with Clark, Norell, Barsbold,
Chiappe, and all those involved in the recent name "confusion".
I'm fine with all these names, and I have a few purely Greek
names up my sleeve that have been transcribed into Latin
characters, but that's it.

<I look forward with great anticipation to the upcoming
description of _Littlefeatheredthing birdlike_.>

  Me too!

  Nothing implicity displeases me about the name, based on the
shear fact that I would have picked a different grammar. If you
would have prefered "Micropterygopragma ornithoides" then so be
it... even "Parvipennatus aviformes" would be shorter... but
nothing says the name _must_ be in Latin and it is perhaps
arrogant to assume that only classic such languages can be the
language of usage.

  Popular ethnic names like *Kokopellia*, *Navahovius*,
*Ouranosaurus*, *Khaan* and George's *Jenghizkhan* pull from the
local languages with only an attempt to be Latin...

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
  Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!

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