Checklists and common English species names (1 Viewer)

Sangahyando · Jul 16, 2018

So I've recently installed Scythebill and it's proving a great asset; wish I'd discovered it earlier. One of its features is the integration of checklists for other classes of animal, including a global mammal checklist that they got from mammalwatching.com
Naturally, I installed that one too and it works fine, although regrettably not being as detailed as the IOC checklist (and I don't think I'm qualified to help them in that regard). However, there were some issues I've discovered. When I entered "Wood Mouse" and "Water Vole", it gave me the wrong scientific names. Turns out those English names - without qualifier - had been reserved for Nearctic species, whereas Apodemus sylvaticus has been re-branded "Long-tailed Field Mouse" and the Water Vole has been given the name "European Water Vole" (which I'd agree on, except that in this case, the NA species should then also be given a regional name).
Maybe there are other cases like that but those are the ones I found that seemed really odd from a scientific or scholarly perspective. Surely those two species, being widespread and common in Britain, would've received their common names before their Nearctic eqivalents. Does anyone have more insight into the etymology of the species involved, or the creation process of those lists?

Maffong · Jul 17, 2018

It seems to me that in these particular cases the IUCN is to "blame", as they employ these names. The mammalwatching list is very largely based on the IUCN's Red List as Jon Hall states here

I hope this helps

Maffong

Sangahyando · Jul 17, 2018

Maffong said:
It seems to me that in these particular cases the IUCN is to "blame", as they employ these names. The mammalwatching list is very largely based on the IUCN's Red List as Jon Hall states here

I hope this helps

Maffong

Thanks - that's arguably even worse though. You'd expect an official institution to give the matter more thought.

Farnboro John · Jul 17, 2018

Long-tailed Field Mouse is an old name for Wood Mouse in Britain. It is however generally not in use now, as Wood Mouse is very much the modern English name. Don't ask me about priority though!

I would no more talk about a European Water Vole than I would a European Robin and I deny utterly that adding a prefix to a species then requires similarly named species to have prefixes added also: so Robin - American Robin etc perfectly acceptable.

Personally I am happy to use an incompletely pencil-updated copy of Duff and Lawson, which is written by sensible British wildlifers and generally sticks to sensible British usage (e.g. Wood Mouse). And I can physically write in ticks, which is satisfying.

John

Sangahyando · Jul 17, 2018

Farnboro John said:
Long-tailed Field Mouse is an old name for Wood Mouse in Britain. It is however generally not in use now, as Wood Mouse is very much the modern English name. Don't ask me about priority though!

Interesting, I didn't know it was an old name. Quite a mouthful though for such a common species.

I would no more talk about a European Water Vole than I would a European Robin and I deny utterly that adding a prefix to a species then requires similarly named species to have prefixes added also: so Robin - American Robin etc perfectly acceptable.

My point is that if no additional prefixes be applied, the traditional name for the European animal should take precedence over the traditional name for the NW North American one, seeing as it's English we're talking about and not Klamath.

Personally I am happy to use an incompletely pencil-updated copy of Duff and Lawson, which is written by sensible British wildlifers and generally sticks to sensible British usage (e.g. Wood Mouse). And I can physically write in ticks, which is satisfying.

John

Yeah... I used to do that a little bit too much when I was a kid, so I've now largely sworn off scribbling into my books. Plus I don't currently own a comprehensive mammal field guide, except one on whales which doesn't have ticking boxes (and those would look quite empty anyway, since the total sum of my whale lifers still hovers at a whopping "one" :-C ).
By the way, does anyone know a good comprehensive field guide on European mammals?

Andy Adcock · Jul 18, 2018

Sangahyando said:
So I've recently installed Scythebill and it's proving a great asset; wish I'd discovered it earlier. One of its features is the integration of checklists for other classes of animal, including a global mammal checklist that they got from mammalwatching.com
Naturally, I installed that one too and it works fine, although regrettably not being as detailed as the IOC checklist (and I don't think I'm qualified to help them in that regard). However, there were some issues I've discovered. When I entered "Wood Mouse" and "Water Vole", it gave me the wrong scientific names. Turns out those English names - without qualifier - had been reserved for Nearctic species, whereas Apodemus sylvaticus has been re-branded "Long-tailed Field Mouse" and the Water Vole has been given the name "European Water Vole" (which I'd agree on, except that in this case, the NA species should then also be given a regional name).
Maybe there are other cases like that but those are the ones I found that seemed really odd from a scientific or scholarly perspective. Surely those two species, being widespread and common in Britain, would've received their common names before their Nearctic eqivalents. Does anyone have more insight into the etymology of the species involved, or the creation process of those lists?

How do you get all the other lists, mammals, butterflies etc, are they inbuilt, where are they located?

Andy

Maffong · Jul 18, 2018

andyadcock said:
How do you get all the other lists, mammals, butterflies etc, are they inbuilt, where are they located?

Andy

Scroll down here

As for mammals I use this field guide, however it didn't cost as much when I ordered it about a year ago... There's also a german version of that is actually affordable

Maffong

Sangahyando · Jul 18, 2018

andyadcock said:
How do you get all the other lists, mammals, butterflies etc, are they inbuilt, where are they located?

Andy

You have to download them separately from the download page. I just clicked on the mammal list file after downloading it and it somehow integrated, don't even remember exactly how. I didn't install the others because they're not world lists, regrettably.
When they're installed, you can find them by selecting them from the "taxonomy" drop down menu, where you'd also choose between IOC and Clements.

Maffong said:
As for mammals I use this field guide, however it didn't cost as much when I ordered it about a year ago... There's also a german version of that is actually affordable

Maffong

Thanks. Guess I'll order the German version then, although I'm always leery of translations... have read/watched too many terrible English-German translations, including mainstream movies and literature.

Andy Adcock · Jul 18, 2018

Thanks guys, very easy.

Some very alien names in the mammal list and it's quite conservative taxonomically.

A

honeym · Jul 19, 2018

Unlike Zoological and Botanical nomenclature there are no 'rules' for vernacular names (not being a botanist I assume the latter is true). Only by usage does it become a 'common name'.

Sangahyando · Jul 20, 2018

honeym said:
Unlike Zoological and Botanical nomenclature there are no 'rules' for vernacular names (not being a botanist I assume the latter is true). Only by usage does it become a 'common name'.

Yeah, but this does raise the question: shouldn't there be rules? As alluded to above, we've repeatedly seen cases of taxonomists (or other biologists) making up names that don't really fit ("cinereous" vulture, anyone?) and/or have no basis in tradition, or are linguistically awkward, and those names are then uncritically adopted by other taxonomists or authors for their own lists/books. I don't think that's a sound approach.
Obviously, this is a bigger problem with transatlantic languages, i.e. English and probably Spanish and Portuguese (although I don't know of any case where Mexicans have tried to change the Spanish name of an Iberian species...) than with the ones that are centred on one continent. But still, some rules would be good.

CalvinFold · Jul 20, 2018

I've been watching this thread because of curiosity and my fascination with metadata systems and organizing data (which is, as it happens, also my job).

Sangahyando said:
Yeah, but this does raise the question: shouldn't there be rules? As alluded to above, we've repeatedly seen cases of taxonomists (or other biologists) making up names that don't really fit ("cinereous" vulture, anyone?) and/or have no basis in tradition, or are linguistically awkward, and those names are then uncritically adopted by other taxonomists or authors for their own lists/books. I don't think that's a sound approach.
Obviously, this is a bigger problem with transatlantic languages, i.e. English and probably Spanish and Portuguese (although I don't know of any case where Mexicans have tried to change the Spanish name of an Iberian species...) than with the ones that are centred on one continent. But still, some rules would be good.

The taxonomists probably mean well, and their reasons likely make sense to someone, but sometimes you just gotta roll with it. I'm looking at you "Ridgway's Rail" who used to just be an easier to spell and remember "Clapper Rail" or "California Clapper Rail." |

|

I mean consider "the crow"...each region has a "crow" but all of us, everywhere, world wide, can't call it that at the scientific level because they are likely from a variety of distinct species. So whose tradition do you use? Who gets precedent? The discoverer? The country's language in question? I'm sure there is already tons of arguing in animals names and place names in English-vs-other languages, yes?

Best you can do is what us data folks do: create cross-reference/lookup lists/AKA lists. You have a column with the scientifically-agreed name, and a column with common/vernacular names. Quite an undertaking if you take multiple languages and slight regional differences into account.

Don't birders already have this problem depending on whether it's a USA-derived list vs. a UK derived list? I thought I saw comments scattered about that the two societies don't always agree, both here and in Wikipedia? And I can only imagine what non-Latin countries think of this; do Chinese taxonomists have their own names or do they put-up with Peking/Beijing-style nonsense still?

Farnboro John · Jul 20, 2018

Sangahyando said:
Yeah, but this does raise the question: shouldn't there be rules? As alluded to above, we've repeatedly seen cases of taxonomists (or other biologists) making up names that don't really fit ("cinereous" vulture, anyone?) and/or have no basis in tradition, or are linguistically awkward, and those names are then uncritically adopted by other taxonomists or authors for their own lists/books. I don't think that's a sound approach.
Obviously, this is a bigger problem with transatlantic languages, i.e. English and probably Spanish and Portuguese (although I don't know of any case where Mexicans have tried to change the Spanish name of an Iberian species...) than with the ones that are centred on one continent. But still, some rules would be good.

To me the answer is no: it's only taxonomists and people who bought the wrong bird starter guide that refer to Bearded Reedlings, many years after the term was invented to replace the settled, understood common English usage of Bearded Tit. For common usage it doesn't matter how accurate, descriptive or logical it is, it only matters that the locals understand it. For the rest, there is a scientific binomial.

"Discussion" tends to arise transatlantically, because North America (apart from relict populations such as the bayou and Quebec) use reasonably passable English but are - as citizens of the UK are - insular in their usage. This doesn't matter really. Unless you have somehow managed to become confused about which side of the Atlantic you are on, it's perfectly obvious which Red Squirrel/Water Vole/Wood Mouse you are looking at. And as long as you have some nous with which to cross-check the scientific name once back on your own continent/island, you can easily insert the tick into a world list.

What I think is important is fighting the nitwits that come up with names nobody's ever heard of that mean nothing to anybody, least of all the locals who are familiar with their local birds and their traditional names, and Cinereous Vulture is an excellent example of that. Refuse to adopt their nonsense, stick with traditional usage (especially to their faces: if you do happen to encounter such a being, rub their noses in it by using the traditional name and deliberately not understanding their ripostes "dunno what you're talking about, mate, never heard of that one"), and eventually they will give up.

John

Sangahyando · Jul 20, 2018

CalvinFold said:
The taxonomists probably mean well, and their reasons likely make sense to someone, but sometimes you just gotta roll with it.

Oh, I don't think they're trying to stick it to anyone, but there seems to be ignorance at work sometimes.

I'm looking at you "Ridgway's Rail" who used to just be an easier to spell and remember "Clapper Rail" or "California Clapper Rail." ||

I'm guessing the Clapper Rail was split and there were no regional names for the Californian ssp. or they ignored them?

I mean consider "the crow"...each region has a "crow" but all of us, everywhere, world wide, can't call it that at the scientific level because they are likely from a variety of distinct species. So whose tradition do you use? Who gets precedent? The discoverer? The country's language in question? I'm sure there is already tons of arguing in animals names and place names in English-vs-other languages, yes?

I think the oldest documented use of the English name should get precedent. Which means in most cases it's species living in Britain or Western Europe, seeing how our written sources on (versions of) English date back to the early Middle Ages. By the same token, I'd expect any Native American language to retain the simplest and least "technical" or foreign-influenced names for animals that occur in the region where its speakers originate from. It's logical and natural.

Don't birders already have this problem depending on whether it's a USA-derived list vs. a UK derived list? I thought I saw comments scattered about that the two societies don't always agree, both here and in Wikipedia? And I can only imagine what non-Latin countries think of this; do Chinese taxonomists have their own names or do they put-up with Peking/Beijing-style nonsense still?

It is possible to express European words in Chinese letters, not sure how often they do it with scientific names though, or if they adjust the spelling during the transliteration. Most alphabets other than the Latin one are antiquated and impractical anyway...

Farnboro John said:
What I think is important is fighting the nitwits that come up with names nobody's ever heard of that mean nothing to anybody, least of all the locals who are familiar with their local birds and their traditional names, and Cinereous Vulture is an excellent example of that. Refuse to adopt their nonsense, stick with traditional usage (especially to their faces: if you do happen to encounter such a being, rub their noses in it by using the traditional name and deliberately not understanding their ripostes "dunno what you're talking about, mate, never heard of that one"), and eventually they will give up.

John

Without set rules, IMO us regular folks don't have enough clout to challenge nonsense names that may appear in field guides or official lists. Don't forget that many novice birders/wildlife enthusiasts learn the names from books, because many of them don't have someone in their social environment who passes on the traditional names. Also, scientific papers use those "official" names because they're "official". History tells us that oral traditions are sbject to change and easily lost; therefore, we need written rules.

CalvinFold · Jul 20, 2018

Sangahyando said:
It is possible to express European words in Chinese letters, not sure how often they do it with scientific names though, or if they adjust the spelling during the transliteration. Most alphabets other than the Latin one are antiquated and impractical anyway...

I think you're referring to pinyin (technically pīnyīn). For example. Beijing (technically Běijīng) vs. native Mandarin (北京)?

Pinyin is simply a way to represent native Mandarin (I won't get into Cantonese) for speakers of English. It's English representations of Chinese phonemes; it's our construct, not theirs.

The rest of your argument seemed rather "Eurocentric" and rather dismissive of other languages, unless I misunderstood? I'd hardly consider written Chinese (or Japanese, Korean, etc.) glyphs antiquated. Impractical in the world of computers, maybe. Though I've watched native speakers use a Mac with a roman keyboard, using both input systems (there are two ways to do it), for Chinese glyphs and it seems to work just fine and they are quite fast.

Sangahyando · Jul 20, 2018

CalvinFold said:
I think you're referring to pinyin (technically pīnyīn). For example. Beijing (technically Běijīng) vs. native Mandarin (北京)?

Pinyin is simply a way to represent native Mandarin (I won't get into Cantonese) for speakers of English. It's English representations of Chinese phonemes; it's our construct, not theirs.

We're going off on a tangent here, but you're misunderstanding my argument. What I meant is the expression of scientific names in Chinese letters, not pinyin.

The rest of your argument seemed rather "Eurocentric" and rather dismissive of other languages, unless I misunderstood? I'd hardly consider written Chinese (or Japanese, Korean, etc.) glyphs antiquated. Impractical in the world of computers, maybe. Though I've watched native speakers use a Mac with a roman keyboard, using both input systems (there are two ways to do it), for Chinese glyphs and it seems to work just fine and they are quite fast.

Well, this is coming from experience with reading/writing in a couple different alphabets. In the case of the Chinese letters (including kanji), I know they're convenient for expressing the Chinese language, but far too time consuming to learn and not really conducive to being applied to languages from a different family. That's why they're antiquated.
The same holds true e.g. for the Arabic alphabet, although that one is obviously easier to learn than Chinese ideograms. Non-Semitic languages such as Turkish or Farsi (or any European language) fare much better with the Latin alphabet instead.
Hangul is a whole different topic and I'm not including it in the "antiquated" bracket.

Nutcracker · Jul 20, 2018

Farnboro John said:
"Discussion" tends to arise transatlantically, because North America (apart from relict populations such as the bayou and Quebec) use reasonably passable English but are - as citizens of the UK are - insular in their usage. This doesn't matter really. Unless you have somehow managed to become confused about which side of the Atlantic you are on, it's perfectly obvious which Red Squirrel/Water Vole/Wood Mouse you are looking at. And as long as you have some nous with which to cross-check the scientific name once back on your own continent/island, you can easily insert the tick into a world list.

The simple answer to this problem is to accept the reality that the American language is a different language to the English language. English name lists could then be restricted to the names used by English people, and American name lists restricted to the names used by American people.

Farnboro John said:
What I think is important is fighting the nitwits that come up with names nobody's ever heard of that mean nothing to anybody, least of all the locals who are familiar with their local birds and their traditional names, and Cinereous Vulture is an excellent example of that. Refuse to adopt their nonsense, stick with traditional usage (especially to their faces: if you do happen to encounter such a being, rub their noses in it by using the traditional name and deliberately not understanding their ripostes "dunno what you're talking about, mate, never heard of that one"), and eventually they will give up.

"Cinereous Vulture" - meaning pale greyish-white, the colour of wood ash, is a particularly egregious example. It might just convince IOC to change to something better if lots of people wrote to them - unlike some others, IOC do listen to requests.

Farnboro John · Jul 21, 2018

Sangahyando said:
Without set rules, IMO us regular folks don't have enough clout to challenge nonsense names that may appear in field guides or official lists. Don't forget that many novice birders/wildlife enthusiasts learn the names from books, because many of them don't have someone in their social environment who passes on the traditional names. Also, scientific papers use those "official" names because they're "official". History tells us that oral traditions are sbject to change and easily lost; therefore, we need written rules.

I've just looked at my 1st edition Collins Guide (because I could reach it without getting up) and looked at the entry for Bearded Tit. Now for reasons best known to the authors they have entitled the passage "Bearded Reedling" which you will never hear in the field in Britain. However, the narrative bit states: "a small, light yellowish-brown bird with long pale yellow-brown tail glimpsed among the dense jungle of reeds should always be a Bearded Tit" - and I'm certainly not going to argue with that obvious exposure of the author's own brain screaming at them to stop talking complete rubbish.

We don't need written rules. It doesn't matter when usage gradually changes e.g. from Yaffle to Green Woodpecker: it wouldn't even matter if Pink Stink gradually replaced Rosy Starling (or is it Rose-coloured Starling? Wasn't it Rosy Pastor once?) Rules are for scientific names. English usage belongs to the people.

As for novices learning names from books, its relatively easy to correct their relatively few errors (I've had to endure the bird I call "Potchard" being pronounced "Poehhahrd", and I've lost count of the Scooters newbies have wanted help with on the coast) including letting them in on the secret that only pillocks and villains talk about Cinereous Vultures and Bearded Reedlings. Generally, they so want to be accepted as birders that they take the knowledge as some sort of inititiation. Which I suppose it is.... up the revolution, brethren. :t:

John

Britseye · Jul 21, 2018

"Unless you have somehow managed to become confused about which side of the Atlantic you are on, it's perfectly obvious which Red Squirrel/Water Vole/Wood Mouse you are looking at."

"What I think is important is fighting the nitwits that come up with names nobody's ever heard of that mean nothing to anybody, least of all the locals who are familiar with their local birds and their traditional names... . Refuse to adopt their nonsense, stick with traditional usage (especially to their faces: if you do happen to encounter such a being, rub their noses in it by using the traditional name and deliberately not understanding their ripostes "dunno what you're talking about, mate, never heard of that one"), and eventually they will give up."

Great stuff, John!

Eurasian this, European that...I haven't any recent editions of Field Guides to European Birds but if I did I'd take a big thick black marker pen and cross out all those redundant prefixes. Unfortunately I can't do it on my computer when I scroll through Birdguides... although, mind you, I am trying to train myself to close one eye so I can't see the first two inches on the left hand side of my screen. (Now all I know is there was some kind of Heron in Dorset and a Tern in Yorkshire but at least it saves me the unrest of triggering my inner Grumpy Old Man.)

Checklists and common English species names (1 Viewer)

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