Re: Sauropodz r kewl WAS: silly conversation on 2012 US presidential race

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

>  In the microbial literature, all authors have to provide an explicit
>  etymology for their new name, plus a recommended pronunciation. The
>  etymology is checked by one of the reviewers. I think this should
>  be standard practise for all new genus and species names - including
>  paleontological ones.

An etymology has to be given for every name governed by the ICZN (though 
it hasn't always been like that -- hence discussions over what, say, 
*Aublysodon* was intended to mean).

In papers I've seen, the etymology is often correct as far as the 
meaning is concerned, but very often Greek roots are called "Latin" or 
vice versa, even when you can tell which language it's from by just 
looking at it.*

Pronunciation guides (would) run into problems of which 
sound-to-spelling correspondences are assumed: that of the original 
language (many names combine different languages, the pronunciations of 
ancient languages aren't trivial to reconstruct, and in some cases few 
people in the world can pronounce any particular sound or sequence of 
sounds)? That of English (which nobody else will go along with, except 
when speaking English)?

* V, f: only Latin. Ph, th, y, eu: only Greek. Ch: almost only Greek.

> > Just tack on a "saurus" or some such and everybody will think it is
> > neat and scien-cy except maybe someone who speaks the obscure
> > language.
>
>  Megapnosaurus (the artist formerly known as Syntarsus) certainly
>  embodies that idea.
>
>  Entomologists have a much less subtle sense of humour though (*Colon
>  rectum*, *Agra vation*, *Aha ha*).

*Megapnosaurus* _was_ named by entomologists, "big dead lizard" _was_ 
intended as humour (we had one of the authors explain this here on the 
DML in 2001), and it's not subtle at all.

(And, again, it should have been Megalapnoosaurus.)