<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Chris, I can’t disagree with you strongly about any of this, except perhaps about one point. I don’t think <i class="">Cyanocitta stelleri </i>is gibberish at all, or at least no more than “blue jay” would be gibberish to someone in Brazil or China. In fact, it is just as meaningful as any name given to anything and actually tells us quite a bit. It contains ‘cyano, Greek for dark blue, and ‘citta,’ Greek for a chattering bird (also used for jays), and thus it means “Steller’s blue jay.”<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Someone giving common names to the species of <i class="">Cyanocitta</i> right now might have come up with Eastern Blue Jay and Steller’s Blue Jay for our two common North American species, in accord with a lot of current attempts to show relationships by vernacular names. That’s what we did with dragonfly names as much as possible. ‘Cristata’ means crested, by the way, so I suppose the eastern one could have been called Crested Blue Jay, but that wouldn’t differentiate it from Steller’s.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And I think at least some kids would think it was the greatest fun to learn scientific names, if they were encouraged to do so. I did it long ago just because I wanted to know what all those Latin and Greek names meant. I never studied the Classics in college, but I have learned so much in my love of scientific names.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And when those 142 eponyms are replaced by something else, I hope the people doing so will know exactly what the scientific names of every one of those species mean, as that can be very helpful when coining a common names.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Finally, what a shame to relegate Steller to the trash heap, so no birder in the future is ever prompted to try to learn just who that person was and what he did—for better or worse.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Dennis Paulson</div><div class="">Seattle<br class=""><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Nov 22, 2023, at 12:52 PM, J Christian Kessler <<a href="mailto:1northraven@gmail.com" class="">1northraven@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Ludlow Griscom’s article is interesting, and makes some good
points, but it essentially boils down to two thoughts:<span class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Perfection is impossible as we don’t – and probably will never - know a comprehensive and accurate taxonomy of birds. <span class=""> </span>Both scientific understanding and common
naming are so muddled as to be beyond repair.<span class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Birders can learn Linnean binomials as well as they can
learn English “common names.”<span class=""></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">As to the first, I totally agree.<span class=""> </span>One thing biology has proven over the past
century is that a “correct” taxonomy of Aves – or any class – is a constantly
shifting target.<span class=""> </span>Any class is a tree
with many tangles, or worse.<span class=""> </span>Olympic
Gull is but one example.<span class=""> </span>Even a species
like Chat is in some respects anomalous.<span class="">
</span>“Best current judgement” is a useful criterion – “perfect” is not.<span class=""></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">As to whether birders can or should learn and use Linnean
binomials, common English language names are for more than avocationally intense
birders.<span class=""> </span>A much wider audience is
involved here.<span class=""> </span>For example, I frequently
hear “backyard birders” and others refer to our local jay as a “blue jay”
rather than Steller’s Jay.<span class=""> </span>They never
heard of Georg Steller, don’t care, and just know the jay had a blue body.<span class=""> </span>But Black-headed Jay would be a name they are
more likely to remember and use.<span class=""> </span>Cyanocitta
stelleri is gibberish and tells them nothing.<span class="">
</span>And it doesn’t tell us serious birders much either – it’s just the same name
with more syllables for "jay".<span class=""></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Many people, including most birders, I suspect, are always
going to use English language names for birds. Many of us started as kids
finding birds interesting; “Mom, I saw a jay” versus “Mom, I saw a Cyanocitta.”<span class=""> </span><span class=""> </span>We can
make common bird names more friendly, and sometimes more enlightening, while
understanding that “always getting it right” is aspirational.<span class=""> <br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="">Chris Kessler,</span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="">Seattle<br class=""></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span class=""></span></p>
</div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 2:38 PM Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney <<a href="mailto:festuca@comcast.net" class="">festuca@comcast.net</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u class=""></u>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class="">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.</span>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class="">"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:</span>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class=""><br class="">"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?"</span>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class="">The article can be read at <a href="https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v059n03/p0131-p0138.pdf" target="_blank" class="">https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v059n03/p0131-p0138.pdf</a></span>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class="">Enjoy!</span>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class=""> - Jon. Anderson</span>
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<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12pt" class=""> Olympia</span>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all" class=""><br class=""><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br class=""><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><span class="">"moderation in everything, including moderation"<br class="">Rustin Thompson<br class=""></span></div>
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