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joe_fish Royal Dottyback (Pictichromis paccagnellae)

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Nov. 25, 2022 00:13:49 +0000 loarie

swapped

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Posted by joe_fish over 1 year ago

apparently changed back, per EtyFish...

"Gender “uncorrections”
I admit I was wrong about this one. Many of us were. But our intentions were correct. Grammatically correct.
According to Article 31.1.2 of the ICZN Code: “A species-group name, if a noun in the genitive case formed directly from a modern personal name, is to be formed by adding to the stem of that name -i if the personal name is that of a man, -orum if of men or of man (men) and woman (women) together, -ae if of a woman, and -arum if of women; the stem of such a name is determined by the action of the original author when forming the genitive.”
An example of each:
Scorpaenodes smithi Eschmeyer & Rama-Rao 1972 – named after South African ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith (1897¬–1968)
Canthigaster smithae Allen & Randall 1977 – named after Smith’s wife, Margaret Mary Smith (1916¬–1987), a fish illustrator and first director of the J. L. B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology (now the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity)
Pempheris smithorum Randall & Victor 2015 – named after both J. L. B. and Margaret Smith
Didogobius janetarum Schliewen, Wirtz & Kovačić 2018 – named after Janet Van Sickle Eyre (b. 1955), Reef Environmental Education Foundation, and philanthropist Janet Van Sickle Eyre, who supported the authors’ goby research
Unfortunately, some taxonomists do not follow Article 31.1.2, either through ignorance, carelessness or choice.
Myself, the editors of Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes (ECoF), and some taxonomists working with bird and herp names, strictly interpreted four words in Article 31.1.2 — “is to be formed” — to mean “must be formed.” So, we began “correcting” the spellings of species-group names that did not agree with the gender of the people being honored.
In addition to believing such cases were mandated by the Code, we thought it was just good grammar. Affixing a masculine suffix to a woman’s name is like addressing her as “Mister.” It just sounds stupid! Also, when I see an eponym with the “-i” case ending and do not know the identity of the dedicatee, I automatically suspect that it’s named after a man. This may reflect my own male bias, but it also reflects the fact that men have dominated science and taxonomy until more recent times. If Allen & Randall had named the Bicolored Toby, a pufferfish from South Africa, “Canthigaster smithi,” I would have suspected they had honored the famous South African ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith. But since they named it C. smithae, I have reason to believe they honored Smith’s wife and scientific partner Margaret Mary Smith, an ichthyologist herself. A correctly used genitive ending helps to convey accurate information about the name.
As ECoF “corrected” spellings in their database and I in mine, we occasionally received notes from ichthyologists saying that our “corrected” spellings were wrong, that ICZN Code did not mandate nor even allow the changes we were making. They also pointed out that our new spellings threatened nomenclatural stability. We countered by quoting the “is to be formed” wording of Article 31.1.2, and that the spellings of adjectival specific-group names are emended all the time when the species is moved from, say, a masculine genus to a feminine genus. If changing “maculatus” to “maculata” does not upset nomenclatural stability, then what’s the problem with changing “larsoni” to “larsonae” (named for goby expert Helen Larson)?
We stubbornly pushed on, but the issue was like a stone in my shoe. Then one day, while reading the ICZN Code on line, I saw that the ICZN had posted a FAQ page, which features the question: “If I find a name is incorrectly spelled, what do I do?” The answer:
“If the ending of a species name which is an adjective does not agree with the gender of the genus then it has to be corrected. However names based on personal names with incorrectly Latinized endings are not corrected as this would cause instability (Article 32.5.1, glossary definition of Latinization). I.e. a species which was named smithi after a woman with the surname smith is not incorrectly spelled even though the normal feminine Latinization is smithae.”
According to Article 32.5.1: “If there is in the original publication itself, without recourse to any external source of information, clear evidence of an inadvertent error, such as a lapsus calami or a copyist’s or printer’s error, it must be corrected. Incorrect transliteration or latinization, or use of an inappropriate connecting vowel, are not to be considered inadvertent errors.”
In short, honoring a woman named Smith with the eponym “smithi” is not an incorrect spelling. It’s simply an incorrect latinization. So, while Article 31.1.2 says the “smithae” spelling “is to be,” Article 32.5.1 acknowledges the error but gives it a pass. Sticklers for Latin grammar may wince at the name, but they cannot correct it. Our attempts to correct it are termed “unjustified emendations.”"

Posted by joe_fish 4 months ago

I've made the same arguments about not changing names. It's an error in interpretation, which can be traced to a paper by Maurice Kottelat. So, I continue to use Pictichromis paccagnellae, Pseudanthias engelhardi, etc.

Posted by anthonygill 4 months ago

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