The Back Page: Dead Languages & Dumb Names
Page 1 of 1 | © 2005-2010 text by Michael Jacobi
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Common means a lot of things.
Shared. Abundant. Generic. Frequent. Usual.
Here in the US south, "common" is often used to describe someone without tact or manners of any kind,
like your neighbor who urinates outdoors behind his shed when he's out mowing the lawn.
Most people don't want to be common.
When it comes to naming creatures, authors have to be different.
That is, they not only have to use a unique name, but they have to follow rules.
And they can't create a name that is shared, abundant, generic, frequent or usual.
There is only one Homo sapiens. Well, actually there's about 5 billion of the buggers, but that's a whole different story.
The point is that there is only one organism that the name Homo sapiens refers to, even though you may call
that organism "human", "man", "person", "cretin" or "mother".
Arachnids are also given unique names.
My favorite arachnid is called Poecilotheria subfusca.
No matter what language a person speaks and what word that person's language uses for tarantula,
Poecilotheria subfusca is understood to be a distinct theraphosid spider.
Everywhere. Anywhere.
But leave it to us Americans to throw a wrench in it all; muck it up as the Brits would say.
We're allergic to systems that make sense. Remember that metric thing?...
We use "common" names, even though there is nothing common about them.
In the rest of the world, hobbyists embrace the universal language of binomial nomenclature"the scientific name.
No, and allow me to stress this part, it's not a "Latin" name.
Many are "Latinized", but scientific names are also derived from Greek and other languages, names of people,
geographical areas and a bunch of other words.
Latin names are probably what ancient Catholic priests called one another.
So why do many hobbyists, particularly in the United States, have such an aversion to the scientific name?
My experience has shown that it comes down to wrongly believing they are complex and confusing,
and an apprehension to pronouncing them.
Well, let's dispense with the latter swiftly; say the names phonetically and most everyone will know what you mean.
In other words, don't worry about it.
If you're a Canadian speaking to a Romanian you're going to pronounce everything differently.
As long as you can utter the correct scientific name in any manner, chances are you'll be understood.
Many names are "Latinized" and Latin is a dead language.
Even scholars don't agree on pronunciation.
Sound it out, listen to how others pronounce them and, when in doubt, accent the second to last syllable.
That's it.
(Well, and don't forget when writing that genus names are capitalized and species names begin with a lower case letter)
And what about this supposed complexity and confusion?
Which is more complex: the "giant Cameroon reddish-brown baboon spider" or Hysterocrates gigas?
Especially since Hysterocrates gigas is Hysterocrates gigas in English, French, German, and Dalek.
"Giant Cameroon reddish-brown baboon spider" could also be araignée brune rougeâtre géante de babouin du Cameroun,
or riesige Kamerun rötliche braune Pavianspinne.
(Oddly, the online translators don't have Dalek!)
For some reason there is a thing called
"Common Names of Arachnids by the American Arachnological Society Committee on Common Names of Arachnids."
As impressive as that redundant title might appear, it makes one wonder why an American group seems to be the only creator of such a list and why only the American Tarantula Society seems to print a list derived from it.
This "official" common names list gives us "Cameroon red tarantula" for Hysterocrates gigas.
Simpler yes, yet still meaningless.
What is it about Americans that requires the use of "common" names?
Are we just "common" like the uncouth neighbor mentioned at the beginning of this diatribe?
Well, some are; some aren't. Just like everywhere in the world"even in the land of Dr. Who's Daleks.
But I think it is about time American hobbyists ignored common name lists and elimated the confusion of "black bird-eater".