It’s difficult because I use a phone, and it gets weird on websites when trying to use italics. But I prefer to use italics, I just don’t always for that reason.
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I was going to say this earlier but didn’t want to because I rarely comment using my phone. Great point
I’d be curious to know if the Associated Press Stylebook, which is supposedly what major newspapers reference so as to standardize their formatting, even addresses proper scientific name writing. I’ve seen complaints online by scientists in the way even major papers like NY Times bungle scientific names.
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That’s a pet peeve when people capitalize the Latin binomial species name, even in publications where they should know better.
Slightly less annoying is when lay articles say “scientists found THE Actias luna in the light trap”. There is no need to put a “the” before a scientific name, gosh darnit.
But again, there are so many taxonomy fails on the internet it is amazing that articles even get the names right.
Rant over
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For you maybe. My rant has just started. For me I’m still waiting for a chance to talk (err, rant?) about “the latest data shows” vs “the latest data show”. Just kidding… English progresses and the vernacular use of the word data probably differs from what is “correct”, but Genus Species with the epithet capitalised is unforgivable in my opinion
Edit: Before someone complains, I’m a pluralist: i.e. data is plural, so it’s “the latest data show”. I don’t really care though. Much.
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I think the matter about common name and capitilization may be more the result of English rules of grammar? I agree that gramatically proper is:
What I like about these two is consistency:
If German became a more popular language for international science communication than english (BBC article), maybe the rules would be a little different?
Despite langage ever changing, I’m not yet aware of anybody Sponge Bobbing the common name:
Best option yet, maybe?
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That’s l33t! :D Let’s lock it in
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Not gonna lie, when I first started I didn’t know you could italicize text in comments, so I didn’t do it. Though later when I learned about the feature, I decided against italicizing, because 1) I like consistency, and 2) it’s extra work.
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More serious than my last reply. Yes, it’s probably true that it’s more about English rules than anything else. What else could it be now that I think about it? Nevertheless it’s a pretty strong convention all throughout any serious or formal literature.
Regarding italics, that’s pretty strong as well but not as strong as I’d have thought. On specimen sheets underline is often used in lieu of italics (or in conjunction with) because, I think, that when hand writing italics can look like cursive and be hard to tell italics apart from cursive. So on many specimen sheets that I see the name is in italics and underlined. But, yeah, still in formal writing I use italics. In informal stuff (like email and on iNat) in most instances, I’m not fussed if italics are used or not
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In the old days, when you had to type up a manuscript on a typewriter, underlining any word that was supposed to be italicized was standard practice. Also true of handwritten text. Even a few minor scientific journals would use underlining instead of italics for scientific names in the printed article. Nowadays of course it’s easy to add italicization to any printed or electronic text, whether we actually bother doing it or not.
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And that may be why I prefer underline instead of italics when hand writing (although it looks terrible in print). Underline looks terrible in print and many style guides say to never use underline whether it’s to do with scientific names or not. Italics are ok. Perhaps that’s why using italics for scientific names is not written down in stone but kind of de facto: it’s a style/formatting/typographical issue. That’s what I was saying earlier but maybe didn’t explain it well. Different mediums require different styles; plain text emails are different to a printed journal (printed physically or formatted first in Word or LaTex or whatever). I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written
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Cursive writing is a dying art, at least in the US. I learned cursive in grade school but by the time I was in college I had abandoned it for printing words. Not as fast or efficient and I’m not sure my printing was more legible, but that’s what happened. I recall when I took a pre-college exam being required to fill out some part of the standardized test form in cursive (I suppose as a check on your identity) – it was a whole paragraph of text and I almost panicked!
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I also hate the ‘data’ thing. It is “the data show x” or “these data show”. It seems like it is a battle we are destined to lose, however.
Having said that, I am also a stickler for binomial names too. Italicized, capital letter for Genus, not for species.
I always think that if you are making a comment, it may as well be done correctly. It’s not that much work. I do it all the time. I also think if I’m taking the time to make a comment, it’s taking time, so why not do it right. I know that even experts don’t bother, but I like the details!! Which is why I like Identification.
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That’s my point though. There is no accepted “correct” (e.g. for emails, for casual replies, for database entries, they’re all different). I do concede your point though: on iNat (apart from Notes in observations) I will endeavour to be more consistent from now on. I won’t for use markup for observation Notes though, for reasons already explained (I don’t want markup in external databases for my observation Notes because markup in a database or spreadsheet looks dumb to me; other people can make up their own minds).
As for external from iNat, which I don’t think this thread is about anyway, I will continue to not use italics for things like email by default. In email I will mimic what the other participants use… if just one person does not use italics I won’t use them either because I’ll assume they’re reading in plain text or something and it’s not a big deal anyway. It’s kind of like how I mimic their address or salutation to me: if they say “Regards” I’ll salute with that. If they say “Cheers” I’ll reply similarly. If they say nothing I’ll panic
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On the one hand, scientific names should be italicized and that’s how I write them in “normal” documents. On the other hand, my experience with websites has mostly been that italization was impossible (my early e-mail, Facebook, comments on blog posts) so I don’t italicize them on iNaturalist although it is now possible to do so. Maybe I’ll change. Don’t bet the house on it, though.
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Through the whole school we’re taught how to write in cursive and not any other way (so, first year you learn how to write both types, but then if you write Д you will be looked at as if you’re 5), there’re two marks you get for language class assignments, one for what you wrote and other for how you did it which is also for dirt, etc. I was told in English class native speakers don’t write that way, but it’s the second nature to me, so my English is in cursive only and I find it much more beautiful that way.
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It is more beautiful. I’ve forgotten how to write cursive, but it really is more beautiful. I miss my grandparents writing. I miss my Dad’s writing. But, alas, it’s a dying art :(
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Oh yeah, and some of our old-school professors (now retired) would take points off on lab practicals if the students didn’t underline the scientific names on their answer sheets…
My grandparents used to write in Sütterlin and I always had to ask my mom to read it for me. I can read Fraktur, but not this.
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A botanist here has the most beautiful cursive handwriting! I love seeing it on folders, etc. Much nicer than printing. Unfortunately, many of the students here now can’t read it.
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They can’t read it at all?! Ok, maybe they should start teaching cursive in schools again :) Edit: I dread the day when all herbarium sheets are written using non-cursive writing… I mean it’s always been the case that styles varied (that’s what the underline is for) but what are we going to do now? Write in all caps? shudder
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