Saturday, May 29, 2004
It's actually a legume
Revisionist historians: bane of cocktail party-going literati everywhere. You know the type. You'll be chatting someone up, mentioning some bon mot attributed to John Quincy Adams, when the revisionist will swoop in from behind and bust out with something like, "You know he was a syphilitic child-molester, right?" Woe unto those who demonstrate any knowledge of historical personages, for the revisionist historian is always waiting in the wings to show you that "Everything You Learned in School is Wrong." Annoying as this may be, there is a yet worse being to encounter: the revisionist etymologian. This is the type that draws attention by spewing out pithy exemplars of the inherent falsehoods in our common speech. For example, it is widely known that the popular dish served in Chinese restaurants called "chop suey" is not authentic Chinese cuisine. Anyone with half a smattering of culture can tell you that its "traditional Chinese dish" status is sheer fabrication. The truth of the matter is that it was invented in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th century by combining the leftover elements of other dishes. Or so everyone, revisionist etymologians especially, will tell you. But the reality is that the "correction" is the falsehood, and the original, "obviously wrong" explanation is the truth! Chop suey really is an authentic Cantonese meal! Its current spelling is a corruption from tsap seui, meaning "mixed pieces", and not a made-up Chinese-Americanism. It's examples like this that make me wary and weary of any etymologies offered in conversation. If someone is going to tell you the "true" origin of some profanity especially, you can just assume that whatever they are going to say is wrong and be right 99 times out of a 100.
Revisionist etymologians love to prey on organismal names. "The peanut is neither a pea, nor a nut" is the most famous example, but one also hears "The Guinea pig is neither a pig, nor is it from Guinea" and "The Congo eel is neither an eel, nor is it from the Congo." Oh, thank you for the clarification, I really thought Guinea pigs were swine for a moment there. Perhaps I'm being a little too harsh here. It's not like pointing out that peanuts are not nuts is some mortal sin (I'm guilty of very similar crimes of conversation: did you know that nothing we call a "berry" is actually a berry?) What really irks me is not the illustration of these nomenclatural imprecisions, but the subsequent steps taken to remedy them. Case in point: the Irish elk, Megaloceros giganteus. This Pleistocene beast was largest deer that ever existed. Its ridiculously large antlers (up to 12 feet in width) are the stuff of paleontological legend. As has been pointed out by many (including Stephen Jay Gould, in an essay entitled, "The misnamed, mistreated, and misunderstood Irish Elk"), the Irish elk was neither an elk, nor was it exclusively Irish. Rather, it was closely related to the living fallow deer and ranged across Europe. Because Megaloceros is "wrongly" called the Irish elk, there has been a big push to start calling it the "giant deer" instead. I cannot for the life of me understand this. For the love of...it's a frickin' common name! In my opinion, the people who strive for "accuracy" in common names have forgotten the entire basis of biological nomenclature. Common names are just what they sound like: popular appellations given to organisms by the common folk. These names vary between languages and dialects, and are often "inaccurate": that's why we have scientific names! Scientific names are consistent, (relatively) precise labels that serve as necessary tools for fruitful communication among biologists. If a scientific name is inaccurate (for example, when a species is assigned to the wrong genus or a genus to the wrong family, not when the name itself is inappropriate, as I will mention below), it needs to be changed. But this is not true for common names: indeed, scientific names exist so that our common names need not be accurate! Furthermore, changing common names to be more "accurate" eliminates all value they may have had. Irish elk is a wonderfully poetic name, ripe with historical significance. Giant deer is just stupid. Another case in point: Darwin's finches. Recent phylogenetic analyses have demonstrated that these paragons of adaptive radiation are not closely related to other finches but instead are members of the tanager family. Because of this, I've overheard people starting to refer to them as "Darwin's tanagers." This is ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the quotationization of offending words in a name, so as to point out its inaccuracy. For example, it now seems that the African palm civet (Nandinia binotata) is not a member of the civet family (Viverridae) but is a more basal carnivoran. To reflect this, people have started writing African palm "civet." Because you know, it's not really a civet. Except that it is. "Civet" is not a hard and fast scientific term, people, it's a common name. A common name that has been applied to Nandinia since it was first discovered and ever since. A common name that refers to a general phenotype and ecomorphotype, not phylogenetic reality. Nandinia is a civet because that's what people call it, it's as simple as that. Such is the nature of common names. And yet, people increasingly try to regulate them. Rather than marsupial mole, it's now written marsupial "mole." Rather than native cats, they're called native "cats." What's the point? No one is a worse person for knowing Megaloceros as the Irish elk rather than the "giant deer." I would wager that there has never been a single instance in which this "inaccuracy" caused a whit of trouble. It's not like some person on the street with a casual knowledge of Ice Age megafauna has ever been abducted by a maniacal supervillain, strapped to some sort of gradual killing device, and told, "Your only chance at escape is to identify which major subdivision of the deer family Megaloceros belongs to!"
"Uh, the elks?"
"No, fool, now...you must DIE!"
Besides, the whole system is artificial, a vagary of our current time and linguistic preferences. Nobody complains about names that were rampantly inappropriate in their original tongue and time of coinage but well-established today. Did the Ptolemies remark, "The hippopotamus is neither a horse, nor does it live exclusively in rivers!" I wonder if German-speaking people ever sit around saying, "Hey, guys, you know it's not really a flying mouse, right?" It should be noted that even in scientific nomenclature, where accuracy is an issue, appropriateness is not. No scientist has ever complained "Tyrannosaurus is neither a lizard, nor did it usurp power from a previous ruling house in ancient Greece" and tried to change the name. Sir Richard Owen did change the name of the enormous Eocene whale Basilosaurus (originally thought to be a reptile, and named "king lizard") to Zeuglodon when he discovered it was a mammal, but this is an exception (and besides, this emendation has not stood the test of time.) So please, folks, just say no to "giant deer": nomenclature is convoluted enough as it is without having to force everyone to grasp the finer points of ungulate systematics.
Oh, and by the way, did you know that the flying lemur cannot fly, nor is it a lemur?
Revisionist historians: bane of cocktail party-going literati everywhere. You know the type. You'll be chatting someone up, mentioning some bon mot attributed to John Quincy Adams, when the revisionist will swoop in from behind and bust out with something like, "You know he was a syphilitic child-molester, right?" Woe unto those who demonstrate any knowledge of historical personages, for the revisionist historian is always waiting in the wings to show you that "Everything You Learned in School is Wrong." Annoying as this may be, there is a yet worse being to encounter: the revisionist etymologian. This is the type that draws attention by spewing out pithy exemplars of the inherent falsehoods in our common speech. For example, it is widely known that the popular dish served in Chinese restaurants called "chop suey" is not authentic Chinese cuisine. Anyone with half a smattering of culture can tell you that its "traditional Chinese dish" status is sheer fabrication. The truth of the matter is that it was invented in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th century by combining the leftover elements of other dishes. Or so everyone, revisionist etymologians especially, will tell you. But the reality is that the "correction" is the falsehood, and the original, "obviously wrong" explanation is the truth! Chop suey really is an authentic Cantonese meal! Its current spelling is a corruption from tsap seui, meaning "mixed pieces", and not a made-up Chinese-Americanism. It's examples like this that make me wary and weary of any etymologies offered in conversation. If someone is going to tell you the "true" origin of some profanity especially, you can just assume that whatever they are going to say is wrong and be right 99 times out of a 100.
Revisionist etymologians love to prey on organismal names. "The peanut is neither a pea, nor a nut" is the most famous example, but one also hears "The Guinea pig is neither a pig, nor is it from Guinea" and "The Congo eel is neither an eel, nor is it from the Congo." Oh, thank you for the clarification, I really thought Guinea pigs were swine for a moment there. Perhaps I'm being a little too harsh here. It's not like pointing out that peanuts are not nuts is some mortal sin (I'm guilty of very similar crimes of conversation: did you know that nothing we call a "berry" is actually a berry?) What really irks me is not the illustration of these nomenclatural imprecisions, but the subsequent steps taken to remedy them. Case in point: the Irish elk, Megaloceros giganteus. This Pleistocene beast was largest deer that ever existed. Its ridiculously large antlers (up to 12 feet in width) are the stuff of paleontological legend. As has been pointed out by many (including Stephen Jay Gould, in an essay entitled, "The misnamed, mistreated, and misunderstood Irish Elk"), the Irish elk was neither an elk, nor was it exclusively Irish. Rather, it was closely related to the living fallow deer and ranged across Europe. Because Megaloceros is "wrongly" called the Irish elk, there has been a big push to start calling it the "giant deer" instead. I cannot for the life of me understand this. For the love of...it's a frickin' common name! In my opinion, the people who strive for "accuracy" in common names have forgotten the entire basis of biological nomenclature. Common names are just what they sound like: popular appellations given to organisms by the common folk. These names vary between languages and dialects, and are often "inaccurate": that's why we have scientific names! Scientific names are consistent, (relatively) precise labels that serve as necessary tools for fruitful communication among biologists. If a scientific name is inaccurate (for example, when a species is assigned to the wrong genus or a genus to the wrong family, not when the name itself is inappropriate, as I will mention below), it needs to be changed. But this is not true for common names: indeed, scientific names exist so that our common names need not be accurate! Furthermore, changing common names to be more "accurate" eliminates all value they may have had. Irish elk is a wonderfully poetic name, ripe with historical significance. Giant deer is just stupid. Another case in point: Darwin's finches. Recent phylogenetic analyses have demonstrated that these paragons of adaptive radiation are not closely related to other finches but instead are members of the tanager family. Because of this, I've overheard people starting to refer to them as "Darwin's tanagers." This is ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the quotationization of offending words in a name, so as to point out its inaccuracy. For example, it now seems that the African palm civet (Nandinia binotata) is not a member of the civet family (Viverridae) but is a more basal carnivoran. To reflect this, people have started writing African palm "civet." Because you know, it's not really a civet. Except that it is. "Civet" is not a hard and fast scientific term, people, it's a common name. A common name that has been applied to Nandinia since it was first discovered and ever since. A common name that refers to a general phenotype and ecomorphotype, not phylogenetic reality. Nandinia is a civet because that's what people call it, it's as simple as that. Such is the nature of common names. And yet, people increasingly try to regulate them. Rather than marsupial mole, it's now written marsupial "mole." Rather than native cats, they're called native "cats." What's the point? No one is a worse person for knowing Megaloceros as the Irish elk rather than the "giant deer." I would wager that there has never been a single instance in which this "inaccuracy" caused a whit of trouble. It's not like some person on the street with a casual knowledge of Ice Age megafauna has ever been abducted by a maniacal supervillain, strapped to some sort of gradual killing device, and told, "Your only chance at escape is to identify which major subdivision of the deer family Megaloceros belongs to!"
"Uh, the elks?"
"No, fool, now...you must DIE!"
Besides, the whole system is artificial, a vagary of our current time and linguistic preferences. Nobody complains about names that were rampantly inappropriate in their original tongue and time of coinage but well-established today. Did the Ptolemies remark, "The hippopotamus is neither a horse, nor does it live exclusively in rivers!" I wonder if German-speaking people ever sit around saying, "Hey, guys, you know it's not really a flying mouse, right?" It should be noted that even in scientific nomenclature, where accuracy is an issue, appropriateness is not. No scientist has ever complained "Tyrannosaurus is neither a lizard, nor did it usurp power from a previous ruling house in ancient Greece" and tried to change the name. Sir Richard Owen did change the name of the enormous Eocene whale Basilosaurus (originally thought to be a reptile, and named "king lizard") to Zeuglodon when he discovered it was a mammal, but this is an exception (and besides, this emendation has not stood the test of time.) So please, folks, just say no to "giant deer": nomenclature is convoluted enough as it is without having to force everyone to grasp the finer points of ungulate systematics.
Oh, and by the way, did you know that the flying lemur cannot fly, nor is it a lemur?
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