Hi shellers,
 
I agree with you and especially with Sue and Scott, common names are
useful to begin shelling or to transmit our fascination to others.
But in other cases it becomes difficult, at least when you have
contact to shellers not familiar to your mother's tongue, even in
England not all the common names you use in America are known, I
guess. In Germany exist a lot of regional idioms which have their own
words for Littorina littorea, Mya arenaria and even if a German uses
the terms "Gemeine Strandschnecke" or "Sandklaffmuschel", which are
their official common names,  I think we will have problems to
communicate. The latin names are a good invention to communicate with
people from other countries, without regard to their origin. No
language or folk is prefered because no one really uses latin or old
greek in his daily life. The scientific names one should call them
with some arrogance have the advantage to refer to a more or less
defined species, and everyone will know what he has to emagine and he
can use a dictonary, i.e. a shell book, to get its common name in his
language.
 
Nice shelling weekend, Andreas
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Andreas Leistikow
Universitaet Bielefeld
Fakultaet fuer Biologie
Abteilung fuer Morphologie und Systematik der Tiere
Morgenbreede 45
D-33615 BIELEFELD / Germany
e-mail: [log in to unmask]