[image] Common Name Being Deleted - Mardi Gras Sharpshooter I think it should remain if entered (and hopefully not a slur or other insulting name) iNat certainly has some common names that are slurs or insulting. A couple of days ago I was searching for Jewelweeds, and once I got three letter…

@Sedgehead – I’m kind of with you on this. One can really get lost down the rabbit hole on this discussion, or the other thread regarding images that include the “OK” symbol, or even the one on the common name of the common flesh fly (!). Life is full of situations where the solutions are unsatisfa…

The hard part for me is when I use a great local plant book, many species have many common names, and it seems like most of the time, the common name is different on iNaturalist. So, it throws me off, and I wish I could customize the common name displayed to my liking.

Plants too. Pinus sabiniana (Gray Pine/ Foothills Pine) used to be known a “Digger Pine”, which was a racial slur toward some of the Native People of California. That name has now been retired.

Out of curiosity where is the racism in Digger pine? Did natives dig? or umm i just can’t see a correlation then again i don’t know anything of the natives of California.

It’s a slur towards groups referred to derogatively as ‘Digger Indians’ (dug for tubers, etc for food)

As @thebeachcomber said. If you’re interested, the following is a pretty good opinion piece about inherent racism in certain common botanical names (it may have already been posted earlier): Racist Relics: An Ugly Blight On Our Botanical Nomenclature

I don’t know why I didn’t think to mention this earlier, but something important to keep in mind in all of this is the etymological fallacy. The etymological fallacy is essentially the failure to acknowledge the fact that language is perpetually changing, and the meanings of words are often drastica…

[image] leafybye: I wish I could customize the common name displayed to my liking. I would like that, too. Not only would we be able to use the common names that are actually used in our area without someone randomly changing the common names to names no one uses in the area, but the necessit…

Managing offensive common names

Curators

DianaStuder May 18, 2020, 6:41pm 48

Yes I did put it in earlier.

Sociology versus botany in 1991.
Living languages change, but that doesn’t justify suck it up , buttercup.

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Managing offensive common names

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