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Using 'New' common names or not? HELP!! (1 Viewer)

Black Wheatear

Black Wheatear

Bowed but not broken, yet!
Over a long period and for purposes involving my work, I have been able to accept and incorporate ‘latest’ name changes both common and scientific. However, I am now involved with (Andalucia Bird Society) the compilation of a standard systematic list for the birds of Andalucia, Spain. The list, apart from representing the most up to date complete information, has also to be understood and used with relative ease by your everyday birder/birdwatcher/ornithologist/twitcher/interested person(s).

Okay, so now for my dilemma. How on earth will most folk recognise such ‘new’ names as Bearded Parrotbill? Surely there has to be a compromise and perhaps bracket the new names whilst using the more familiar i.e. Bearded Reedling (Tit).

It is all well and good using the cutting edge new names, but as always when you use cutting edge anything you bleed!!

I could use some advice here please.

:-C
 
I know what you mean. I've recenly fininhed writing my book and some of the lists have names that aren't immediately obvious. I guess if it's European birds and you're aiming for a mostly European audience, then use BWP as a reference, or the BOU for English names. I guess eventually, everyone will plump for the names in the IOC list (even the BOU are making rumblings about how to incorporate them), but sometimes, it can get a bit awkward (Common Murre, anyone...?).
In the end, I used the BOU list as a starting reference, and anything not covered by that I used whichever was the most appropriate list, so AERC, BWP, then IOC.
Don't know if that's any help, but it's not that easy...
Cheers,

Tony
 
colonelboris said:
I know what you mean. I've recenly fininhed writing my book and some of the lists have names that aren't immediately obvious. I guess if it's European birds and you're aiming for a mostly European audience, then use BWP as a reference, or the BOU for English names. I guess eventually, everyone will plump for the names in the IOC list (even the BOU are making rumblings about how to incorporate them), but sometimes, it can get a bit awkward (Common Murre, anyone...?).
In the end, I used the BOU list as a starting reference, and anything not covered by that I used whichever was the most appropriate list, so AERC, BWP, then IOC.
Don't know if that's any help, but it's not that easy...
Cheers,

Tony
Click to expand...

Thank you Tony. I will ponder, wonder and the rest as I am compiling. Like others in this Title I am miffed by the latest version IOC vs Clements 1.7, but others do not seem to have been as helpful as you with my problem!

Many thanks,
:t:
 
Not one qualified to comment really, not into the name thing on any technical level (although I seem to recall some common ground from a thread on bird names once . . ;) ).

Surely you are in the position of providing some of the 'edge' in this case. ie by publishing in one manner or another you can help forward these changes or hold them back a little. I remember reading a county report years ago which contained names like the parrotbill or similar way ahead of anyone else using them in the common lingo, and it just read as silly . . .

Probably you want to have the names that are going to be used by birders/ interested parties for the next couple/5/10 years or so. So Eurasian Starling but not Beraded Parrotbill . . . And of course the Latin binomial is there for hyper-accuracy!!

(That's probably what the colonel was roughly indicating too??. . )

An appendix of name changes would be awkward and OTT I guess . . . so maybe bracket alternative names as you suggest?? . . or maybe not?

Anyway, is it just a list you are producing? Which takes precedence, the english, spanish or latin?? I guess in some respects would it really matter if it wasn't as accurate and hyper up to date as it could be? (given that some of it is all likely to change at any given time anyway??).



That's another opinion (same?) at any rate!
 
I would avoid Bearded Parrotbill: this name should disappear as quickly as possible because it is not a parrotbill at all according to recent DNA work.
I think Bearded Tit is probably the most widely understood (although Bearded Reedling is better to indicate its uniqueness and might be the final verdict).
 
Xenospiza said:
I would avoid Bearded Parrotbill: this name should disappear as quickly as possible because it is not a parrotbill at all according to recent DNA work.
I think Bearded Tit is probably the most widely understood (although Bearded Reedling is better to indicate its uniqueness and might be the final verdict).
Click to expand...

Surely if people are being pedantic enough to change it from "tit" to "parrotbill", they should also change it from "bearded" to "moustached". ;)
 
Thanks one and all. I think I have settled on using the order of birds as per IOC 1.7, but as far as common names are concerned, then I think the most readily recognised by the 'majority' of readers has to be my main consideration.

Actually, as an aside, Bearded Parrotbill has gone back to Bearded Reedling. Someone somewhere is showing a modicum of commonsense (for the moment).

:t:
 
I’m surprised that I’d previously missed this thread particularly since Peter and I have been corresponding on this very issue! (So apologies for repeating myself, Peter). I think that the truth is that many birders are very reluctant to give up the names with which they, ornithologically speaking, grew-up. I recall that at one time an attempt to foist ‘Hedge Accentor’ upon the birding public, but the bird resolutely remained, as far as most birders are concerned, a ‘Dunnock’ (or, less often, Hedge Sparrow). Similarly, whilst qualifying prefixes like ‘European’ or ‘Eurasian’ have colonised bird books like unwanted bacteria, in every day ‘birding speak’, birders prefer the familiar shorter version. My own view is that rather than using a list generated by the BTO/BOU/BB etc., we should simply use those found in the Collins Guide which is, after all, the most widely used modern field guide.

Personally, then, I’d avoid any neologisms and, as far as possible, stick to what’s familiar. Any attempt to use the English language to indicate familial relationships is doomed to failure; after all that’s why we have scientific names. If you must, relegate such clumsy modifiers to a bracketed status for use only when absolutely necessary. Not that I’m wholly against change. I like Zitting Cisticola for example – in fact so much so that it annoys me that ‘Fan-tailed Warbler’ somehow insists on being the words that slip out in the field! But I’d never countenance ‘Cinereous Vulture’ apart from anything else it clearly isn’t ash-grey and ‘Monk Vulture’ is no better! Besides, as it’s not a vulture at all, shouldn’t it be the American version that changes its name - ‘Black Turkey-Vulture’ perhaps?
 
I'd second that - if it's a list for primarily European comsumption, then use Collins, BWP or something a bit more local than IOC. I mean, Common Murre, for crying out loud... ;)
 
This issue caused quite alot of problem in my local society. We had complaints from members about the 'new' BOU names that we used in the bird report. In the 07 report we now use the common name with the BOU name underneath in smaller print if different.
Has this problem occured in any other countys?
 
If you want common usage then it has to be Bearded Tit. I don't think I have ever heard anyone call it anything else.

If you have any species that you are pondering then maybe the bestway is to flag up individual cases and get feedback that way. Obviously you need to qualify Starling with Spotless being your main Sturnus.

Steve
 
John Cantelo said:
we should simply use those found in the Collins Guide which is, after all, the most widely used modern field guide.

The Collins guide, at least the one I've got, uses a few weird hybrid names I've never seen anywhere else or ever heard anybody use - Black-throated Loon, Great Northern Loon, Parasitic Skua - where did they come from?
Click to expand...
 
dave44 said:
John Cantelo said:
we should simply use those found in the Collins Guide which is, after all, the most widely used modern field guide.

The Collins guide, at least the one I've got, uses a few weird hybrid names I've never seen anywhere else or ever heard anybody use - Black-throated Loon, Great Northern Loon, Parasitic Skua - where did they come from?
Click to expand...

These all reflect American usage and I'd forgotten that the Collins guide, unwisely in my view, used them. Broadly speaking in the debate concerning English names the Americans have held sway over those species which we have in common. Loon is, of course, an old English name which long since fell out of use in the UK. Since the British alternative are most widely employed amongst birders resident in Europe I feel that these names should take precedence here with the (to us) neologisms added in brackets. That said I rather like the name 'Longspur',
Click to expand...
 
To me this is the whole problem with the attempt to standardise English names - nobody follows anybody elses list 100%, everybody has a few of their favourites that they're not prepared to give up. Even BB at the height of their support for the issue were not prepared to give up Red Grouse even though no subspecies were supposed to have a common name.

So going back to the original question, use whatever names you want, everybody else does. Even if you follow the IOC list this time who's to say some names won't have changed again when they publish their next update
 
dave44 said:
So going back to the original question, use whatever names you want, everybody else does. Even if you follow the IOC list this time who's to say some names won't have changed again when they publish their next update
Click to expand...

Good point - for all of their standardisations, that list changes quite a bit. What you use from there might be different by the next year's list.
 
colonelboris said:
I'd second that - if it's a list for primarily European comsumption, then use Collins, BWP or something a bit more local than IOC. I mean, Common Murre, for crying out loud... ;)
Click to expand...
The sinister-sounding Murre is a curious word for such an elegantly clad seabird.
With Black Guillemot and Pigeon Guillemot in use in the US, I'm sure they could have opted for Common and Thick-billed Guillemot (but you can keep on saying Brünnich'sif you can pronounce it!)
 
Xenospiza said:
but you can keep on saying Brünnich'sif you can pronounce it!
Click to expand...

I've had practice with umlauts lately, even to the extent of finding keyboard shortcuts to type them...
 
Last edited:
But that brings up a totally different problem - why do certain people seem to want to 'dumb-down' names such as Brunnich's to the lame Thick-billed, Stoliczka's Bushchat to the equally lame White-browed, Guldenstadt's Redstart to the even lamer White-winged? Seems so unevocative and somewhat rude to the memories of the people for whom they were originally named
 
It's not just ornithology, either. 'They' (IUPAC) decided that in chemistry, we had to rename reactions so they weren't named after people. Thankfully, most people seem to have ignored this. Hopefully, the same will happen with birds, too.
 
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