Campaign to standardise the capitalising of English names of species (1 Viewer)

[GraemeLyons]

(This post is lifted directly from my blog here where all the 150+ 'signatures' currently sit. The idea is that this collection of influential UK naturalists can be used as leverage against organisations, publishers and publications that force you to write species names in lower case).

Last year I wrote this post. It is by far the most viewed post I have ever written on my blog in 12 years of blogging, with over 3000 views! So I thought we needed to put a little more momentum into it.

So, if you agree with the following statement, why not put your name to it and ideally, let me know who you work for OR say 'rather not say'. Either comment or message me directly. And please share this post like mad so we can get a big list of names going. Yes, some big organisations are doing it wrong but some are getting right, like Butterfly Conservation, BTO and (now) Sussex Wildlife Trust. And publications like British Wildlife and Adastra also get it bang on. If you can think of anymore, please feel free to comment too.

"English names of species should be correctly capitalised and hyphenated, effectively treated as proper nouns. This should be mandatory and standardised, as is the format for scientific names. There are many different reasons to do this explained more fully in the above mentioned post but perhaps none are more troublesome than the fact that lower case should be reserved for the generic sense, i.e., we have three species of forester moth in the UK, one of which is the Forester. Without the species being correctly capitalised, there is no way to distinguish species from genus. And there are a many different ways this can go wrong, from Small Blue becoming small blue to Little Ringed Plover becoming little ringed plover. The excuse that "capitals look bad on the page" is not a valid excuse. If you are writing primarily about species, they should be written with capitals.

• Little Ringed Plover NOT little ringed plover
• Kentish Plover (above) NOT Kentish plover
• Silver-washed Fritillary NOT silver washed fritillary
• Forester (or The Forester) NOT forester (or the forester)

The argument that species should be treated as proper nouns is important. Yes, each species might be comprised of countless millions of individuals but by definition, they are distinct at the genetic level. There is (roughly speaking) one distinct set of code per species. It is this that should be treated as a proper noun. If we can be bothered to capitalise the names of man-made dog breeds and models of cars, we owe it to the natural world too."

Organisations, publications and projects that get it right.

• Butterfly Conservation (BC)
• British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)
• Sussex Wildlife Trust
• British Wildlife
• NBN
• iRecord
• British Birds
• British Ornithologists' Union (BOU)
• State of Nature
• Back from the Brink

 

[Ian Lewis]

There needs to be a clear distinction between a Little Ringed Plover ie Charadrius dubius and a 'little ringed plover' which the uniformed could assume is a small individual of Charadrius hiaticula

I find it very strange to see a list that comprises of for example: mistle thrush, song thrush, White's thrush etc

In terms of birding publications the main culprit here in the UK is the RSPB and given their influence they should be the main target of your campaign.

You certainly have by support

Ian

 

[TomDerutter]

I agree.
It was a sad day when wikipedia decided to enforce it the wrong way...

 

[GraemeLyons]

Hi Tom and Ian, thanks for your support. Would it be possible to get a job/vocation to go with the name or should I put 'birder'?

 

[dantheman]

Similar threads on BF in various subforums over the years, searching titles for 'capitalization' -

ACTION NEEDED: Capitalization of English names on Wikipedia

I apologize in advance if this is not the correct forum for this topic. If you think official English bird names should be capitalized, please take just a moment to share your thoughts as to why at at this link by clicking the [edit] button within it. Wikipedia is seriously considering...

www.birdforum.net

Are bird names supposed to be written in capital letters?

I would like to write them in capitals. I hover over caps-lock, but then I don't. Is it correct to capitalise?

www.birdforum.net

Capitalization of Common Bird Names?

Hello all, I thought I would bring this subject up as I think about it a good deal when looking at books/websites and seeing bird names capitalized fully, partially, or not at all. In a magazine that I get (Birdwatchers' Digest to be specific), bird names are capitalized in two ways. Either...

www.birdforum.net

Why are common names of birds capitalized?

Out of curiosity, does anyone know why this is so, and when it started? I suppose one element is that common names of birds have been standardized to an extent not seen in mammals, but I find it curious that all of the "standard" seem to be lower case for mammals in journals, while in many bird...

www.birdforum.net

(And probably a few more)

 

[KC Foggin]

No one seems to do it anymore. Such a shame.

 

[Ian Lewis]

Hi Tom and Ian, thanks for your support. Would it be possible to get a job/vocation to go with the name or should I put 'birder'?

Retired Biochemical Scientist

 

[dantheman]

In terms of birding publications the main culprit here in the UK is the RSPB and given their influence they should be the main target of your campaign.

I don't understand why the RSPB don't capitalise bird names; it should be in their interest for birds to be more important in their publications and elsewhere? Did someone tell them it was 'wrong'? (Don't recall offhand if they changed from doing it in the past)

 

[opisska]

It's really a shame that all this effort isn't directed to something that actually matters, unlike the cases of letters.

 

[dantheman]

It's really a shame that all this effort isn't directed to something that actually matters, unlike the cases of letters.

That's quite condescending and dismissive ;-) You have no pet peeves/gripes?!

Most things are relatively pointless in the grand scheme of things, and this isn't that much effort.

Getting things right in science is actually quite important.

 

[opisska]

Writing small or big letters has nothing to do with science. In the Czech language, the rule is the opposite - small letters - and any time anyone writes capitals, some smartypants jumps in to correct them. Why? Whom does it hurt? I am interested in birds, not grammar, so why do I have to constantly skip over that nonsense? it doesn't change the meaning, it doesn't make it difficult to comprehend. It's just the people whose hobby happens to be language feel the need to shove their hobby down everyone else's throat and they even feel like they are helping some good cause.

This threads calls upon "influential naturalist" to persuade various environmental and scientific agencies to pay attention to a petty issue made up by a bunch of people with an obsessive disorder, thusly wasting the time of both sides. I mean I am the last person to criticize people "wasting" their time for their own entertainment, but those people are actively wasting other people's time for their personal obsessions.

There is nothing good or noble about this.

 

[dantheman]

Writing small or big letters has nothing to do with science. In the Czech language, the rule is the opposite - small letters - and any time anyone writes capitals, some smartypants jumps in to correct them. Why? Whom does it hurt? I am interested in birds, not grammar, so why do I have to constantly skip over that nonsense? it doesn't change the meaning, it doesn't make it difficult to comprehend. It's just the people whose hobby happens to be language feel the need to shove their hobby down everyone else's throat and they even feel like they are helping some good cause.

This threads calls upon "influential naturalist" to persuade various environmental and scientific agencies to pay attention to a petty issue made up by a bunch of people with an obsessive disorder, thusly wasting the time of both sides. I mean I am the last person to criticize people "wasting" their time for their own entertainment, but those people are actively wasting other people's time for their personal obsessions.

There is nothing good or noble about this.

Did you read the OPs blog post?

 

[dantheman]

There is nothing good or noble about this.

writing things in a certain way is important. And not just in a 'grammar police' kind of way. I note you write Czech language, not czech language. Presumably you wouldn't mind at all if we started talking about higgs bosons and stuff like that (or we could even get a letter wrong and write higgs bosom ... or spell the other word wrong and right higgs boson).

I'm sure we could delve into SI units and find ways we could mess with them too ...

Getting uniformity and standard practice is important - chaos theory may be fun, but hey ...

 

[Kirk Roth]

Writing small or big letters has nothing to do with science. In the Czech language, the rule is the opposite - small letters - and any time anyone writes capitals, some smartypants jumps in to correct them. Why? Whom does it hurt? I am interested in birds, not grammar, so why do I have to constantly skip over that nonsense? it doesn't change the meaning, it doesn't make it difficult to comprehend. It's just the people whose hobby happens to be language feel the need to shove their hobby down everyone else's throat and they even feel like they are helping some good cause.

This threads calls upon "influential naturalist" to persuade various environmental and scientific agencies to pay attention to a petty issue made up by a bunch of people with an obsessive disorder, thusly wasting the time of both sides. I mean I am the last person to criticize people "wasting" their time for their own entertainment, but those people are actively wasting other people's time for their personal obsessions.

There is nothing good or noble about this.

You have quite a few things incorrect here. While I've met few people who would consider language their "hobby," those who push for this sort of standardization are typically scientists, naturalists, and people who, if they are hobbyists, have hobbies in natural history. Hence, the interest in and by "influential naturalists" as you yourself noted. Indeed, in English there is very little impetus in making objects into proper nouns from any grammatical tradition, except I suppose for location names, languages and maybe a few I'm forgetting right now. Naturalists are the ones behind it in this case because they are the peoples who see the problems firsthand.

These problems have already been expressed, but because you asked, I'll state them again. We do, of course, formalize and codify species names - that is not news to anyone who reads this forum. A formal name in ornithology refers to a specific species - again, obvious. But those formal names are not necessarily unique, in that they are descriptive... in other words, there are indeed changed meanings. Capitalization is a rather simple way of discerning between the two. A Common Gull is not the only common gull. Here in the New World we have several American yellow warblers, but only one American Yellow Warbler. Sometimes in speaking to birding groups, I've said things such as "That is an uppercase Saltmarsh Sparrow" to distinguish from the others we'd been seeing in that habitat. It is very easy to find examples in other taxa as well. I work in environmental consulting, and in several reports I've had to capitalize plant names to be sure people know what I'm talking about. There is an entire group of Quercus sp. in the white oak group, the white oaks, but only Quercus alba is the White Oak. It leads to effective rather than confusing communication. I'm accustomed to laymen agreeing with this approach as well - in fact you are the first I can recall with such strong feelings against it!

You state that writing in small or big letters has nothing to do with science, but that's simply not true - you must certainly be familiar with the conventions in scientific names. But with regard to English, the AOS and others insist on this for publications.

I can't speak toward its nobility, but its clear to a lot of people that standardized and clear communication is indeed a good thing and worth spending the effort towards. I'm sorry you find it a waste of time - though you did indeed choose to spend it commenting!

 

[Mysticete]

Writing small or big letters has nothing to do with science. In the Czech language, the rule is the opposite - small letters - and any time anyone writes capitals, some smartypants jumps in to correct them. Why? Whom does it hurt? I am interested in birds, not grammar, so why do I have to constantly skip over that nonsense? it doesn't change the meaning, it doesn't make it difficult to comprehend. It's just the people whose hobby happens to be language feel the need to shove their hobby down everyone else's throat and they even feel like they are helping some good cause.

This threads calls upon "influential naturalist" to persuade various environmental and scientific agencies to pay attention to a petty issue made up by a bunch of people with an obsessive disorder, thusly wasting the time of both sides. I mean I am the last person to criticize people "wasting" their time for their own entertainment, but those people are actively wasting other people's time for their personal obsessions.

There is nothing good or noble about this.

Yet you feel obligated to click on a thread post entirely about this topic, and to write several posts about how people are dumb to care about this?

 

[Andy Adcock]

Yet you feel obligated to click on a thread post entirely about this topic, and to write several posts about how people are dumb to care about this?

Maybe he wants to move to England, a lot to say on our rarities committee too?

 

[opisska]

Maybe he wants to move to England, a lot to say on our rarities committee too?

Says the guy who loved.England so much he moved to Cyprus

 

[Andy Adcock]

Says the guy who loved.England so much he moved to Cyprus

I love England but followed my wifes career, simple as that, I'm a mercenary.

 

[Trinovid]

writing things in a certain way is important. And not just in a 'grammar police' kind of way. I note you write Czech language, not czech language. Presumably you wouldn't mind at all if we started talking about higgs bosons and stuff like that (or we could even get a letter wrong and write higgs bosom ... or spell the other word wrong and right higgs boson).

I've little to add to the subject of the thread other than to point out that capitalization is not well defended by comparing it to spelling.

 

[dantheman]

I've little to add to the subject of the thread other than to point out that capitalization is not well defended by comparing it to spelling.

Indeed, generally speaking. However it was kinda intended as a semi-humorous response to a particular poster who works with Higgs bosons and the idea that 'getting things right' doesn't matter (in a field other than your own?), which was one takeaway I took from the post ... ;-) If it failed miserably so be it ...


Interestingly I mispelt the word 'write' as 'right' myself (tired brain?), so included that too, which probably made the sentence make little sense ... but yes confusing the issue perhaps!

Anyway ... ;-)