Right on, man!
   Just go to the zoo. It's an elephant---not an elephas. It's a bear---not an ursus.
    My common name is Art Weil---not Asher Weil.
    For the purists: FINE! Never use a common name. But for us commoners---it is a flying pig---not a Porkus aeronauticus Weil, 1998.
    Art
>
> From: "Monfils, Paul" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2003/02/11 Tue AM 11:12:46 EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Common names
>
> Consider it from a non-conchological point of view. How many of us
> conchologists would glance out our dining room window and remark, "oh look,
> there's a Turdus migratorius hopping around on the lawn". Yet an
> ornithologist, or even a serious bird watcher, would probably say just that
> - and might very well look with scorn upon us laymen who use common names.
> As for us ornithological laymen though, we are just as happy that the thing
> can be called a "robin". So we can hardly blame them for calling something a
> winkle or a whelk or a clam, or whatever makes their life easiest.  Well
> gotta run - the cafeteria is serving Xiphias gladius L. 1758, and I want to
> get there while they still have some.
>
> Paul M.
>

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