Oh dear
I find it simultaneously hilarious and shocking that taxonomists chose to bestow epithets tied to historical figures to these species. It’s much like the naming of streets here in South Africa, many streets named after White people before democracy, even those that had little or no link to the apartheid regime, are now being changed to names of POC’s involved in African revolutions, even those that later turned out be reviled dictators and authoritarians. Point being, one man’s hero will always be another man’s terrorist, and it is grossly irresponsible to name species, streets or really anything after popular people, regardless of how relevant to their time they were.
8 Likes
Well I’m shocked. Most of the naturalists I’ve met have a strongly sophomoric sense of humor. How could this thread have gone on this long without anyone mentioning the genera Phallus (stinkhorn mushrooms) and Clitoria (butterfly peas)!?!?
2 Likes
These are not the heresies they are looking for.
3 Likes
There are definitely stronger examples of Eurocentric naming like plant genus Tropaeolum, named after Roman post-victory rituals.
The cited example makes a better case for not naming plants after plants, like with Verbesina encelioides making sense only after becoming familiar with Encelia.
I personally like it when species are named in some way that describes the taxon like with Lupinus bicolor where the species part means two-color for the flower, I assume. I’m sure there’s something to be said about translating local language descriptions of new taxa into Greek/Latin for naming that’s Eurocentric, but it being a dead language makes it difficult for everyone. Maybe less-so if your language uses Greek/Latin roots?
I’m not sure how the example of the Māori word mataī for the plant vs. learning the scientific name is any different than an English speaker learning that a blue berry refers to Vaccinium angustifolium. The relationship between the common name and scientific name just doesn’t exist and it’s rarely easy, and requires repeated memorization.
However, I agree with one of your previous comments that indigenous people ought to have an outweighted right to scientific names, especially in cases where the taxon is endemic to them.
That’s the point where I start to struggle. Do we believe that indigenous people somehow have a better understanding of taxonomy? That the names they pick will somehow be more accurate and useful by virtue of them being indigenous? Or are we really just having a conversation about how to make some people feel better (and not necessarily the indigenous people) about some historic wrongs? If so, why?
5 Likes
I think the first question assumes the position that they don’t have a better understanding, which is problematic because it’s an untested assumption.
This is just one case, but when I read Temalpakh: Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants, an ethnobotany book for my area written by an anthroplogist and a native Californian, the authors spent a great deal of time describing how plant names were related to one another in the native language. They remarked how there were some similarities to the binomial naming system.
Therefore, indigenous people aren’t just randomly naming things and maybe some of these existing relationships might better inform naming practices.
With Anophthalmus hitleri and many of the comments in topic: If you could rename an existing species, it’s hard to argue that the way things are done now is best and that having more diverse input is bad.
Moreover, why can’t an indigenous person be a taxonomist?
8 Likes
Phallus and Clitoria might fit better as a comment in: Funny, long, or just plain weird animal names. I know it says animal names, but there have been many plants posted there already, so why not Fungi?
Other people coming to a new for them land also don’t name things randomly, it’s not like one nation is better at feeling the plant essence than another.
Latin names are mostly used by botanists, but in my life I never found myself in need to find what the “origin” plant looks like or even think about it, like there’s Filipendula ulmaria with similar common name, but you can either say - yes, it looks kinda like Ulmus, or say - who cares, I can remember the plant and its name because all those Latin names are just things you need to learn and remember. (btw I’d say blueberry is Vaccinium uliginosum)
3 Likes
When British and Dutch people came to the Cape, they left a trail of Cape … whatever. Those names have no meaning for the people who live here. It looks like … something we have never seen.
We have over a hundred comments here. How many read or spoken languages among us? Why not add Botanese as Esperanto for botanists? (And why not learn the meaning / translation of the Botanese, it can help to fix the binomial)
Pity this poor taxonomist at the end of a L O N G day!
2 Likes
Partly, because these wrongs are not so historic. Indigenous people are still fighting to reclaim much of their cultural heritage post colonization. Many groups have lost huge chunks of their language and cultural history because of Indian Boarding Schools in North America. So, why would we not?
I asked my grandmother (Cherokee) what she thought of the topic. While she doesn’t care to rename descriptive common or scientific names, she does find it rude (her word) to name “her” plants after people that committed atrocities against her people.
10 Likes
Not at all. The original post was for potentially offensive scientific names. Every commenter than took it in the direction of potentially problematic historical figures. Which historical figures are offensive depends on which point in history you are in and who wrote it. I agree with the concept of let’s reign in naming things for individuals, but otherwise it’s probably in the eye of the beholder. I love giggling at those sophomoric names, but in all seriousness naming things after genitalia has been offensive to many at all points in history. I know I wasn’t too happy when using a field guide with fifth graders to find the scientific name of the weird mushroom we found was Phallus and the common name was puppy penis.
2 Likes
I’m pretty sure those are potentially offensive scientific names, no?
How? Then every “vulgaris” is offensive.
1 Like
Anatomy (including genitalia) isn’t offensive. These names might lack tact, but I wouldn’t describe them as offensive. These names are descriptive of the shape.
5 Likes
There is a difference between disruptive and offensive. The word “Nutcracker” could similarly be disruptive to a group of joking schoolkids, but it’s a stretch to call it offensive. Penis is a word the same as arm or leg. However, there are some synonyms related to the penis and clitoris that could be offensive because they are commonly used as derogatory insults.
4 Likes
I think we need a little common sense here. I love giggling at the word nutcracker, bushtit, and many others but that’s because I’m a 12-year-old at heart. I still feel like we could do without names that would make most people quite uncomfortable if teaching a young child or their grandmother. Hitler’s beetle and Puppy’s Penis both meet that level for me. I don’t think we need to trim at the edge cases here, just the obvious ones.
2 Likes
Yes, in other words it’s not Latin for penis.
1 Like
My wife, who is a primary school teacher would often give a 10 minute lecture before teaching kids about the digestive system because kids would laugh about words like butt, where she would tell the kids that this is these are normal words, everyone poops, etc.
This kind of prefacing may be helpful for some of these offensive, genital-inspired taxa. Granted, potty humor has a long history, much longer than kids drawing that S-thingy, so it only goes so far.
For common names, I’ve seen at least one field guide refer to Dipterostemon capitatus as School Bells and Wild Hyacinth so maybe referring to offensive common names by some other less offensive name helps?
1 Like