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2005–2010 /Archive 1 |
General note: Whether the common name of a species of organism is capitalized on Wikipedia is something that is currently decided by each individual WikiProject, based on what the authorities in that subject do or don't do. Please try to adhere to the conventions of the relevant project. Invertzoo ( talk) 14:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Every few months over the last 2 years I have come to look at this article and its talk page, and I see the same pattern here each time. I understand that one editor feels that he/she is truly an expert on this topic, but I feel I must point out that it is not reasonable, and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia to attempt to "defend" the article against all comers. Several of the people who have commented here over the last two years are working scientists who are very familiar with both scientific names and common names. These people probably have some helpful ideas to contribute, and need to be "allowed" to do what they can to improve the article. The editor who is most active here appears to approach the subject of common names from a philosophical (possibly structuralist?) point of view. I have been reluctant to even raise the issue of "ownership" [1] here on the talk page, but I feel I have to, mainly because this quote from the WP ownership page seems apposite, as I have seen variations on this welcome applied to several different editors over the last two years:
"Hi! I notice that you are a new contributor to the widget article. Thank you sooo much for your ideas. It is wonderful to know that so many novices like yourself have taken an interest to widgets. Anyhow, I have made some small amendments to your changes. You might notice that my tweaking of your wording has, in effect, reverted the article back to what it was before, but do not feel disheartened. Please feel free to make any other changes to my article if you ever think of anything worthwhile. Toodles! :)"
I would request that anyone who has too much emotionally invested in this article being one way or another might want to consider backing off, taking a break and moving on to editing other articles or creating new ones.
I do not wish to get into a long and convoluted discussion, so this is all I am going to say.
Happy New Year, and thanks everyone, best wishes to all, Invertzoo ( talk) 01:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Today I made an attempt to take out of the article everything that was flavored with Point of View, and to remove anything that made the article look like a personal essay. Everyone who contributes to this article from now on, please try to remember that Wikipedia is simply an encyclopedia, nothing more. A Wikipedia article is emphatically not a soapbox. It is also not a platform for launching your own thoughts about a subject, however sure you are that you are correct in your views. This should be a straightforward encyclopedia article about what a common name is. Thank you. Invertzoo ( talk) 14:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
The talk page was getting slow to load, so I created an archive page (see archive box at top of page) and archived the messages from 2005 through 2010. Invertzoo ( talk) 14:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Wbm1058 inserted an edit, remarking that "...certainly the term must have other meanings outside of biology". I admit that I had overlooked that entirely. I went to Ngrams and found several types of usages of the term. I would support a section dealing with the subject, and if no one else is panting to get at it, I might produce something myself sometime, possibly soon, though not very. I should be surprised if it comprised more than a shortish paragraph, but it seems meaningful enough not to ignore. JonRichfield ( talk) 08:12, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Today I removed several paragraphs as I think this discussion does not really belong in this article. One could argue that it might be more suited to the article about folk taxonomy, although frankly I think as it currently stands it reads far too much like an essay, and is riddled with POV.
I agree with the user who wrote the invisible comment that said: "Unless the following remainder of the section up to and encluding the Moby Dick quote is expanded upon again and the problems with the explanation noted, perhaps the article is better off without it entirely. The whole subject seems better suited to a more general article about biological taxonomy, anyway."
Here are the paragraphs in case someone wants to work up some of the material to go somewhere else:
"There is a correspondence between many common names and systematic taxonomic names. Studies that compared the names applied to various plants by traditional Oriental herbalists with the classification of the same plants by modern botanists, also showed surprisingly close correspondence. ANOTHER INVISIBLE COMMENT SAID HERE: The former, much more detailed version at http://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=431885348 made the vital point that the counterexamples are even more numerous and arguably even more relevant. It's even quite possible that this explanation has it exactly backwards: At least at the lower (genus, sometimes even species) level systematic classification is itself frequently, generally or even principally arbitrary and based on lay classification, as pointed out by George Lakoff in "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things". This subjectivity is the reason why cladistics eschews ranks completely.
"Many laymen who have the experience and interest to name the creatures that they deal with, also have the powers of observation that equip them to recognise relevant differences and group organisms accordingly. The way in which they do this is generally to create a term for a familiar and inclusive set of entities perceived to have shared characteristics. Such a term is likely not to be a binomial at first. Consider the Afrikaans term "bok" which in this context may be taken to mean "antelope". (It has other meanings that are not relevant in context.) When the waterbuck became known, it was recognised as distinct from other known antelope and it was distinguished by qualification, in effect creating a subset of antelope called "waterbok", a perfectly valid application of intuitive set theory. Subsequently the settlers discovered the lechwe and correctly noted its resemblance to the related waterbuck, but at that point the defensibility of the system showed signs of strain; the new animal was called "basterwaterbok", meaning literally "hybrid waterbuck". [1] The set-theoretical principle remained largely defensible and was recognisably analogous to formal taxonomic principles, but the systematic biological knowledge necessary for functional interpretation was lacking.
"Commonly problems would arise even sooner; the Afrikaans name for Cannabis is "dagga"; the indigenous plant Leonotis leonurus is effectively unrelated, but, because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves, is called "wildedagga", meaning "wild dagga". [2]
"A possibly more typical example illustrating how common names reflect what might be called folk taxonomy, and for lack of technical insight (though not necessarily of good sense) often undermine the merits of biologically systematic nomenclature can be found in the book Moby-Dick or, The Whale, by Herman Melville. [3] In Chapter 32, "Cetology", concerning the question of whether the whale is a fish or mammal, Melville wrote in about 1851:
"
The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish... The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears..." I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug... Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.
"
Thanks, Invertzoo ( talk) 21:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
"[H]azards of facile coinage of terminology"?? Someone translated gracilis as graceful once, and therefore common names are "confusingly inaccurate"? English common names shouldn't be coined if an older Zulu name exists for some of the animals in a genus? What?? And there's a lengthy paragraph quoted verbatim from 1868 to make the point? A quote which seems to presume all languages use the same names for all of geography? Really??? The whole section on "Coining common names" seems to assume the reader will be bored by the long-winded explanations and accept anything that is written in a long enough sentence. It does a horrible job of presenting a single side of an argument. — Pengo 13:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
A few more points might be helpful in reducing blood pressures all round:
I see no objection to the response to the NPOV challenge some 6 months ago. I had actually forgotten about it, and apologise to all parties. Unless someone brings some constructive discussion to the party in the next few weeks (or months -- years or however long I take to remember), I shall remove it. JonRichfield ( talk) 15:09, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
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Why are common name are not universal? 103.51.137.42 ( talk) 16:04, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
2005–2010 /Archive 1 |
General note: Whether the common name of a species of organism is capitalized on Wikipedia is something that is currently decided by each individual WikiProject, based on what the authorities in that subject do or don't do. Please try to adhere to the conventions of the relevant project. Invertzoo ( talk) 14:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Every few months over the last 2 years I have come to look at this article and its talk page, and I see the same pattern here each time. I understand that one editor feels that he/she is truly an expert on this topic, but I feel I must point out that it is not reasonable, and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia to attempt to "defend" the article against all comers. Several of the people who have commented here over the last two years are working scientists who are very familiar with both scientific names and common names. These people probably have some helpful ideas to contribute, and need to be "allowed" to do what they can to improve the article. The editor who is most active here appears to approach the subject of common names from a philosophical (possibly structuralist?) point of view. I have been reluctant to even raise the issue of "ownership" [1] here on the talk page, but I feel I have to, mainly because this quote from the WP ownership page seems apposite, as I have seen variations on this welcome applied to several different editors over the last two years:
"Hi! I notice that you are a new contributor to the widget article. Thank you sooo much for your ideas. It is wonderful to know that so many novices like yourself have taken an interest to widgets. Anyhow, I have made some small amendments to your changes. You might notice that my tweaking of your wording has, in effect, reverted the article back to what it was before, but do not feel disheartened. Please feel free to make any other changes to my article if you ever think of anything worthwhile. Toodles! :)"
I would request that anyone who has too much emotionally invested in this article being one way or another might want to consider backing off, taking a break and moving on to editing other articles or creating new ones.
I do not wish to get into a long and convoluted discussion, so this is all I am going to say.
Happy New Year, and thanks everyone, best wishes to all, Invertzoo ( talk) 01:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Today I made an attempt to take out of the article everything that was flavored with Point of View, and to remove anything that made the article look like a personal essay. Everyone who contributes to this article from now on, please try to remember that Wikipedia is simply an encyclopedia, nothing more. A Wikipedia article is emphatically not a soapbox. It is also not a platform for launching your own thoughts about a subject, however sure you are that you are correct in your views. This should be a straightforward encyclopedia article about what a common name is. Thank you. Invertzoo ( talk) 14:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
The talk page was getting slow to load, so I created an archive page (see archive box at top of page) and archived the messages from 2005 through 2010. Invertzoo ( talk) 14:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Wbm1058 inserted an edit, remarking that "...certainly the term must have other meanings outside of biology". I admit that I had overlooked that entirely. I went to Ngrams and found several types of usages of the term. I would support a section dealing with the subject, and if no one else is panting to get at it, I might produce something myself sometime, possibly soon, though not very. I should be surprised if it comprised more than a shortish paragraph, but it seems meaningful enough not to ignore. JonRichfield ( talk) 08:12, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Today I removed several paragraphs as I think this discussion does not really belong in this article. One could argue that it might be more suited to the article about folk taxonomy, although frankly I think as it currently stands it reads far too much like an essay, and is riddled with POV.
I agree with the user who wrote the invisible comment that said: "Unless the following remainder of the section up to and encluding the Moby Dick quote is expanded upon again and the problems with the explanation noted, perhaps the article is better off without it entirely. The whole subject seems better suited to a more general article about biological taxonomy, anyway."
Here are the paragraphs in case someone wants to work up some of the material to go somewhere else:
"There is a correspondence between many common names and systematic taxonomic names. Studies that compared the names applied to various plants by traditional Oriental herbalists with the classification of the same plants by modern botanists, also showed surprisingly close correspondence. ANOTHER INVISIBLE COMMENT SAID HERE: The former, much more detailed version at http://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=431885348 made the vital point that the counterexamples are even more numerous and arguably even more relevant. It's even quite possible that this explanation has it exactly backwards: At least at the lower (genus, sometimes even species) level systematic classification is itself frequently, generally or even principally arbitrary and based on lay classification, as pointed out by George Lakoff in "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things". This subjectivity is the reason why cladistics eschews ranks completely.
"Many laymen who have the experience and interest to name the creatures that they deal with, also have the powers of observation that equip them to recognise relevant differences and group organisms accordingly. The way in which they do this is generally to create a term for a familiar and inclusive set of entities perceived to have shared characteristics. Such a term is likely not to be a binomial at first. Consider the Afrikaans term "bok" which in this context may be taken to mean "antelope". (It has other meanings that are not relevant in context.) When the waterbuck became known, it was recognised as distinct from other known antelope and it was distinguished by qualification, in effect creating a subset of antelope called "waterbok", a perfectly valid application of intuitive set theory. Subsequently the settlers discovered the lechwe and correctly noted its resemblance to the related waterbuck, but at that point the defensibility of the system showed signs of strain; the new animal was called "basterwaterbok", meaning literally "hybrid waterbuck". [1] The set-theoretical principle remained largely defensible and was recognisably analogous to formal taxonomic principles, but the systematic biological knowledge necessary for functional interpretation was lacking.
"Commonly problems would arise even sooner; the Afrikaans name for Cannabis is "dagga"; the indigenous plant Leonotis leonurus is effectively unrelated, but, because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves, is called "wildedagga", meaning "wild dagga". [2]
"A possibly more typical example illustrating how common names reflect what might be called folk taxonomy, and for lack of technical insight (though not necessarily of good sense) often undermine the merits of biologically systematic nomenclature can be found in the book Moby-Dick or, The Whale, by Herman Melville. [3] In Chapter 32, "Cetology", concerning the question of whether the whale is a fish or mammal, Melville wrote in about 1851:
"
The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish... The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears..." I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug... Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.
"
Thanks, Invertzoo ( talk) 21:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
"[H]azards of facile coinage of terminology"?? Someone translated gracilis as graceful once, and therefore common names are "confusingly inaccurate"? English common names shouldn't be coined if an older Zulu name exists for some of the animals in a genus? What?? And there's a lengthy paragraph quoted verbatim from 1868 to make the point? A quote which seems to presume all languages use the same names for all of geography? Really??? The whole section on "Coining common names" seems to assume the reader will be bored by the long-winded explanations and accept anything that is written in a long enough sentence. It does a horrible job of presenting a single side of an argument. — Pengo 13:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
A few more points might be helpful in reducing blood pressures all round:
I see no objection to the response to the NPOV challenge some 6 months ago. I had actually forgotten about it, and apologise to all parties. Unless someone brings some constructive discussion to the party in the next few weeks (or months -- years or however long I take to remember), I shall remove it. JonRichfield ( talk) 15:09, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Common name. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 10:56, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
Why are common name are not universal? 103.51.137.42 ( talk) 16:04, 1 August 2023 (UTC)