[Tweeters] Historical Perspective on Re-naming Birds

[Kenneth Brown]

Thanks Jon, it was an interesting read, and certainly adds some perspective on the renaming issue.


> On 11/21/2023 2:38 PM PST Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney <festuca at comcast.net> wrote:

>  

>  

> Bob Righter from Denver posted this on the Colorado birding chat group.  I thought it might be an interesting read for those of us who are 'anxiously' awaiting action from the AOS on revising the Common Names of birds that are named after People.

>  

> "From chatter on the internet emerges an interesting article by Ludlow Griscom written in 1947 “Common Sense in Common names.” Griscom, was a power house in the early 1900s and greatly influenced Roger Tory Peterson. The full article can be accessed through Google. I’ve taken the liberty of just featuring the last paragraph which I thought was the most poignant to our conversation on Bird Names:

> 

> "NO “simple and logical principles” for vernacular nomenclature can be formulated.  There are far too many birds; their variations, relationships, and ranges are not simple or logical. Their habits and habitats change from season to season, from one section of the continent to another, from century to century. Which season, which habitat, which section of the country is to be the basis for the “appropriate or associative” name?"

>  

> The article can be read at https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v059n03/p0131-p0138.pdf

>  

> Enjoy!

>  - Jon. Anderson

>  Olympia

> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20231121/1b13f3ef/attachment.html>