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Renaming all North American Birds (1 Viewer)

Razorbill Alca torda - Common Auk
I don't get the insistence on changing "Razorbill" (yours is at least the second post to bring this up). "Razor" is a common English word in modern parlance.
The other changes are also completely unnecessary IMO. Especially the ultra-generic ones featuring "Balkan", "Mediterranean", or cardinal directions. There's more than enough of these among established species names already.
 
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I cannot see justification for a single one of these. We should not be afraid to maintain or use little understood words; it has never been easier to track down the meaning of words we don't know. Anyone who doesn't know the meaning of the word Pectoral, or Ferruginous, or Lanceolated, simply doesn't want to. Changing to Banded, Chestnut and Streaked merely takes steps to impoverishing the language. I knew about these birds, understood what they were, could read and talk about them, before I knew what their qualifiers meant and it simply didn't matter. The fact that some birds have esoteric names is a good thing, it encourages the curious to widen their vocabularies, and that should not be sacrificed simply to appease people who don't want to learn. Give me Lacrimose Mountain Tanager and Diademed Sandpiper-plover over Crying or Crowned any day.

But why does someone interested in bird automatically have to share your interest in language? To me, your line of argumentation is simply abusing the fact that birds need to have a name for practical purposes in order to push your other hobby onto other people. This I see happen quite often and it constantly irritates me - every discussion about the use of language is overtaken by people for whom the language is the hobby and who act like that is something universally noble, which it simply isn't. It's perfectly okay to not be interested in language - yes I fully agree that in this day and age, any person that doesn't know the meaning of the words doesn't want to - but I don't agree that it is a bad thing.

For me personally the "arcane" naming of the birds is not much of a problem, because I have always had it easy with words - I learn languages easily and I read faster than people talk. But I am aware of there being a lot of people, who don't have it easy like that and for whom - especially if they aren't native speakers - learning words like "ferruginous" is a really scary thing. Native English speakers also need to keep this in mind - that English names are not there just for you, but for any traveling birder as that's the only language in which those can get any information on the birds in other parts in the world (yes, there is also Latin names, but that's several levels harder).

Honestly, it's not the biggest problem in the world right now, it's not even the biggest problem related to birds, but since there clearly are people who are willing to but their time to it, why not make birding a bit more accessible? Because it would feel bad to a few people who like the language quirks? Those can surely just remember those as well and use them privately.
 
Honestly, it's not the biggest problem in the world right now, it's not even the biggest problem related to birds, but since there clearly are people who are willing to but their time to it, why not make birding a bit more accessible? Because it would feel bad to a few people who like the language quirks? Those can surely just remember those as well and use them privately.

Dumbing-down. Going to the lowest common denominator. The commonest regular or garden birds tend to be straightforward anyway - Goldfinch, Blue Tit, House Sparrow etc?
 
For me personally the "arcane" naming of the birds is not much of a problem, because I have always had it easy with words - I learn languages easily and I read faster than people talk. But I am aware of there being a lot of people, who don't have it easy like that and for whom - especially if they aren't native speakers - learning words like "ferruginous" is a really scary thing. Native English speakers also need to keep this in mind - that English names are not there just for you, but for any traveling birder as that's the only language in which those can get any information on the birds in other parts in the world (yes, there is also Latin names, but that's several levels harder).

You've just explained effortlessly why the suggestions upthread of using non-English words to create English names should be mercilessly shot down in flames.

But these are names, and you don't have to understand them to use them. "Jan" I guess is more or less the same as my "John" but whereas Dixon is a shortened version of "son of Dick" (no comedians please), what does Ebr mean? Not that I need to know in order to (a) identify you as Jan Ebr or (b) have a conversation with you, either here or in the field. So you are right, people don't need to know what Ferruginous means - though one of the great things about birding is the number of different aspects of learning it can generate (not to mention thread drift). But that's not a reason for getting rid of such words either.

John
 
You've just explained effortlessly why the suggestions upthread of using non-English words to create English names should be mercilessly shot down in flames.

But these are names, and you don't have to understand them to use them. "Jan" I guess is more or less the same as my "John" but whereas Dixon is a shortened version of "son of Dick" (no comedians please), what does Ebr mean? Not that I need to know in order to (a) identify you as Jan Ebr or (b) have a conversation with you, either here or in the field. So you are right, people don't need to know what Ferruginous means - though one of the great things about birding is the number of different aspects of learning it can generate (not to mention thread drift). But that's not a reason for getting rid of such words either.

John

Yeah, I am quite torn on that suggestion of non-English names. Because I like the philosophy, but don't like the practical impact. To be fair, I think something like "Nene" is still much easier for most of the world population than "Ferruginous", so it still wins even from the practical point

I have no clear idea what Ebr means (I also haven't been born with it), it may be related to the German word Eber, which is supposedly a Wild Boar male (but it's not daily used I am told?). Anyway, bird names serve a bit different function, possibly to much broader set of people - I am just trying to imagine my partially dyslectic wife birding somewhere abroad being told that some bird is "Ferruginous something" and trying do Google it, there is simply no way she ever types it even remotely right from just hearing it. If it were "Rusty", that's a word she has heard and will maybe make just one mistake and Google will guide her. She is an extremely smart person, with a PhD in Astrophysics, but words are just hard for her - and that's a relatively common disability. If we can make the world easier for people with disabilities, why not?
 
Yeah, I am quite torn on that suggestion of non-English names. Because I like the philosophy, but don't like the practical impact. To be fair, I think something like "Nene" is still much easier for most of the world population than "Ferruginous", so it still wins even from the practical point
This list is for English speakers isn't it?

Would you make allowances such as this with the Czech list or would Czech birders want it in the Czech language?
 
But why does someone interested in bird automatically have to share your interest in language? To me, your line of argumentation is simply abusing the fact that birds need to have a name for practical purposes in order to push your other hobby onto other people. This I see happen quite often and it constantly irritates me - every discussion about the use of language is overtaken by people for whom the language is the hobby and who act like that is something universally noble, which it simply isn't. It's perfectly okay to not be interested in language - yes I fully agree that in this day and age, any person that doesn't know the meaning of the words doesn't want to - but I don't agree that it is a bad thing.

Ok, yes, I can see that, and if we were designing bird names from scratch where none had been before then yes, there would be a case for consistency and common sense. But we're not. We have the names we have, lots of people already use them, and big changes would cause big confusion. That's not to say that big change should never happen, just that really there should have to be a very very good reason for it. Part of the point that I was (badly) making is that you don't have to know what Ferruginous means to know what a Ferruginous Duck is, how it can be identified, where it comes from and so on. Changing its name to Chestnut has negligible positive effect, so why consider it? And besides, in twenty, thirty, forty, however many year's time whose to say there won't be people complaining that Chestnut is too esoteric and we should be talking about "Sort-of-reddish-brown Duck". Because by sidelining names like Ferruginous a whole new trenche of words become the least widely used, and end up being targeted for phasing out, which is what I mean by impoverishing a language. And finally, if we are to replace Ferruginous with anything it should be Rusty, not Chestnut.
 
How about Blue-diademed Motmot, with its rarely-used term, versus Lesson's Motmot, in which case the name is almost always pronounced wrong - as if it were the English word for what your teacher gives you, as opposed to a French surname.

Poor René Lesson!
 
This list is for English speakers isn't it?

Would you make allowances such as this with the Czech list or would Czech birders want it in the Czech language?

But it isn't used just by English speakers, as I have explained above. Your language is the closest thing that we have to a universal world language, you will have to accept that. It isn't so bad because you already heavily benefit from it by everything being published in it.
 
Yeah, I am quite torn on that suggestion of non-English names. Because I like the philosophy, but don't like the practical impact. To be fair, I think something like "Nene" is still much easier for most of the world population than "Ferruginous", so it still wins even from the practical point

I have no clear idea what Ebr means (I also haven't been born with it), it may be related to the German word Eber, which is supposedly a Wild Boar male (but it's not daily used I am told?). Anyway, bird names serve a bit different function, possibly to much broader set of people - I am just trying to imagine my partially dyslectic wife birding somewhere abroad being told that some bird is "Ferruginous something" and trying do Google it, there is simply no way she ever types it even remotely right from just hearing it. If it were "Rusty", that's a word she has heard and will maybe make just one mistake and Google will guide her. She is an extremely smart person, with a PhD in Astrophysics, but words are just hard for her - and that's a relatively common disability. If we can make the world easier for people with disabilities, why not?

Maybe not just you or your wife - aka Fudge Duck ;)
 
But it isn't used just by English speakers, as I have explained above. Your language is the closest thing that we have to a universal world language, you will have to accept that. It isn't so bad because you already heavily benefit from it by everything being published in it.

And I think that you have to accept, that speakers of a language that is not their own, will not always be as proficient as a native and should not presume to tell them how to produce a list to accomodate their own inadequacies.

I would not dream of telling any other nation, that they have to dumb down their language because I'm not as good at it as they are.
 
You've just explained effortlessly why the suggestions upthread of using non-English words to create English names should be mercilessly shot down in flames.

Yes i suppose you don't need foreign names when there are perfectly good English names that can be used. Like Kookaburra and tanager for instance.
 
I cannot see justification for a single one of these. We should not be afraid to maintain or use little understood words; it has never been easier to track down the meaning of words we don't know. Anyone who doesn't know the meaning of the word Pectoral, or Ferruginous, or Lanceolated, simply doesn't want to. Changing to Banded, Chestnut and Streaked merely takes steps to impoverishing the language. I knew about these birds, understood what they were, could read and talk about them, before I knew what their qualifiers meant and it simply didn't matter. The fact that some birds have esoteric names is a good thing, it encourages the curious to widen their vocabularies, and that should not be sacrificed simply to appease people who don't want to learn. Give me Lacrimose Mountain Tanager and Diademed Sandpiper-plover over Crying or Crowned any day.

:clap::clap::clap:
 
There is at least one (and I think only one) bird name that honors two different individuals. What is it / are they?
Verreaux's (Verreauxs's) Eagle is another one.
But you must be thinking of Archbold’s Newtonia (hurray for searchable lists).
I had to look in the book: it's not the worst one. Rufous-fronted Warbler-Vanga then? Desert Warbler-Vanga?
 
Yes i suppose you don't need foreign names when there are perfectly good English names that can be used. Like Kookaburra and tanager for instance.

And indeed many others. But proliferating them now, totally unnecessarily and not to the clarification of anything, seems absurd, as already indicated.

John
 
Verreaux's (Verreauxs's) Eagle is another one.
But you must be thinking of Archbold’s Newtonia (hurray for searchable lists).
I had to look in the book: it's not the worst one. Rufous-fronted Warbler-Vanga then? Desert Warbler-Vanga?

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Indeed, Archbold's Newtonia was what I was looking for. A name which basically means "Archbold's version of Newton's bird."
 
Here is another trivia question for ya:

There is only one person, with more than one honorific bird, for which all of the common names use both his first* and last name. Who is it?

*Amending this. It isn't actually a first name, but rather a title (not an obvious one, at least not to a native english speaker).
 
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Here is another trivia question for ya:

There is only one person whose honorific birds use both his first and last name. Who is it?

For a while I went round with the notion that Alfred Pallas had several birds named after him, only to one day discover via a For Sale notice in someone's front garden that it was in fact a firm of estate agents. :-C

https://www.alfredpallas.com/

Hats off to JWN Andrews for a very good last post. How about Superciliared Hemispingus for a name to conjure with.

(I was going to say 'Merlin' - now there's a name to conjure with, but you've probably heard that one before! :king:)
 
Here is another trivia question for ya:

There is only one person whose honorific birds use both his first and last name. Who is it?

Amending this. It isn't really a first name, but rather a title (but not an obvious one, at least not to an native english speaker). So it is not Mrs. Gould, or Lady Amherst.

Hang on, it's not Jacky Winter, is it?
 
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