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Re: TLA's-Common Names
>I've got to agree with the position that scientific names hinder the
>hobby.Let anyone on this list try going to an aquarium shop and try any
>kind of protracted discussion in scientific legaleeze and watch how fast
>the general public turns off.
yes, but the general public doesn't care what fish they've got, just "gee,
give me some of those pretty ones" and never bother learning anything more
about them. Most folks never even heard of cycling a tank! The aquarist
who reads or does research or partakes in listserves is already in a tiny
minority. Frankly, having easy common names appears to be little help to
the vast majority of inexperience fishstore help, etc. Sure, if we want to
mass market killies that'd be the way to go, and some fish already have
common names, but many many do not.
>No we use the good old common term Killie
>and every
>one seems to understand just fine.Notho's-ditto along with so many other
>abrieviations and common terms.And we all do it including the champions
>of scientific nomenclature.
Notho is a short form of the scientific name, you can't use that one! Got
to go with "jewel fish" or something. Otherwise just stick with
Nothobranchius.
> We all depend on reference materials,listing names and terms yet
>reference books like Axelrod's Aquarium Fishes of the World,the Baensch
>Aquarium Atlas volumes,and Aqualog all list common names for the
>overwhelming majority
>of species listed. What does that tell you?
Exactly the point. Those books DON'T list every common name for each fish.
I suggest you take a look at those sources again. Baensch and Axelrods
encyclopedia have common names for only a fraction of the fish, and they
are missing several common names. Tell me what you can find out about what
"Red minors" are in your books. How about "Blueberry rainbowfish"? Or
'leopard fish". All three are in both Baensch vol 1 and Axelrod's
encylopedia. If I tell you I have "bumblebee gobies", perhaps you can tell
me if I have xanthazona, aggregatus, xanthomelas or doriae? It matters
because they have somewhat different requirements, but without the
scientific name I have to guess which of these four similar species I have.
All of these are names for fish I've found applied to fish in local fish
stores.
>Of course that would not be in keeping with the centuries old and
>honored tradition of trying to incorporate a dead and really
>meaningless language into a species name.
>Invaryiably it's also given a common name as well in most cases but to
>do this from the start "just wouldn't sound SCIENTIFIC!"
No, it just wouldn't be very useful. This isn't about sounding scientific.
It's about not having to scramble all over creation just to figure out what
someone means by the latest common name some breeder has come up with to
market their fish better. How many killies actually have common names?
>The point being that maybe as a group we could reach out,communicate with
>other groups,publishers,etc and
>succeed in adopting a list of simple common names.Yes I know it's been
>tried before
>but if it made sense then and seemed worth the effort,it would have even
>more merit now. Assigning common names to fish species has always been
>done,is being
>done now,and will continue in the future.In our age of comunication does
>it really seem so impossible to get together with say the German killie
>club,The UK national Killie
>organization and a few others and join heads with a few book publishers
>and come up with a list of international common names.If so I believe
>that it would be accepted
>universally.Common names,common sense,order from chaos.(defin,chaos-the
>confused unorganized state existing before the creation of distinct
>forms)a move twords improvement,simplification,maybe terminology that
>EVERYONE could use
>spell and pronounce
yes, a lot of effort has been done to do exactly that. Those
internationally accepted names are called scientific names. Recognized
internationally, found everywhere. not free to invention by clever
mega-breeders! Or would you rather learn German, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Hindi, Gujarati, Thai, etc. to accomodate all
those who would want to have common names that make sense to them in their
language. Or are you expecting everyone to learn English, perhaps?
>Think Japenese-Less is More.
exactly. Why have zillions of names when you could simply have one? That
would be too easy. The only reason folks don't like it is because they
aren't willing to do the minimal effort in learning what they are.
This isn't about intellectual snobbery as you imply (if anything this
discussion is motivated by anti-intellectual snobbery!), but rather I'd
like to know what I'm getting when I get it so that I can best take care of
my fish. I don't like having to guess what species of fish something is
because the seller has some new common name I've never ever heard of.
Doug
Doug Karpa-Wilson
Department of Biology
Indiana University
Jordan Hall
1001 E. 3rd St.
Bloomington, IN 47405
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