Um, you might have to click the photo to see that part. And I'm allowed to be excited, you know. This summer's wet weather has made it a lot harder to find my pointless invertebrate photography subjects, so any spider is cause for celebration.
Is too. My house, my rules.
----------
Anyway. Back to the title. It's nothing mysterious, honest. All it means is doubtful names. In taxonomy it's loosely used when the names species have been given are in someway questionable. Maybe the original type specimen is missing (oh, by the way: the singular form would be nomen dubium. You know, in case you wondered) so diagnostic features can't be confirmed, maybe two people have given different names for the same thing (although that fits more under nomen ambiguum, I think)... that sort of thing. They're names that are confusing in some way and will have to be replaced.
Aaaaand I've lost most of you to boredom already, haven't I? Don't worry, I wasn't planning to make this a post about taxonomy. Even if it's pretty important to me. Coming from the background I do, I can't help but think that it's important to our understanding of the world and the way things work in it to figure out where things might fit (notice the might, there. Our understanding of the world changes as we learn, so the fit we understand now might change later) and name them in a way that shows their relationships. And even if it frustrates the hell out of me sometimes (plant taxonomy being a good example, with so many recent changes) and even if I'm comfortable enough using common names in my everyday life, in the end it's important to scientific understanding that each thing out there has just the one name. Yeah, if you're out on the trail with me I'll gladly talk about Silverberry or Wolf Willow or even Silver Willow, but in my head I'm remembering that none of those names are terribly accurate (the willowy ones especially) and that the blasted stuff is Elaeagnus commutata. Blame school, I guess, but clarity in nomenclature is important to me.
Hmmm. That's a fair amount of typing considering that I haven't even got to what I thought my topic was yet. Let's see if I can streamline the rest a bit.
The reason nomina dubia is at the top of the page today really doesn't have anything to do with science, oddly enough. It was just the term that came to mind when I was talking to someone the other day and the subject of a friend's baby's name came up. This person didn't like the chosen name, you see, because she thought it was just a made-up thing and not a real name at all. Babies should be given real names, not confusing ones (Ah ha! Nomina dubia, said my easily-distracted brain to itself). At the time I just said that I thought it was a pretty name and left it at that, but it got me to thinking later.
Not a real name, but a made-up one, huh?
Aren't all names made up?
I have very visceral reactions to some baby names, yes, but for the most part it's because of other people I associate the name with and not the degree of made-up-edness. I mean, sure, there are traditional names and new names and sometimes even unique names, but all that really differentiates a traditional name from a new name is the amount it's been used. For instance, would anyone object to the name Wendy as being just a made-up thing nowadays? It's not all that old in its current usage, though. Although he probably didn't completely invent it, as is often stated, it was Peter Pan writer J.M. Barrie who popularised the name. In 1904. Not exactly ancient, is it? And yet I doubt very much that the person I was speaking to who hated the made-up name would have a problem with Wendy.
Personally, I'd have more of a problem with people who name their kids after soap opera characters. But that's just a personal thing with me and isn't really saying anything about the names or the people who choose them.
Now, some people will say that it's important to have a name with meaning (I wonder how they feel about taxonomy?) and some people will go through stacks of baby books to find just the right one, but you have to be careful there as well. I can't help but think that in their desperation to put a meaning to every name some of those books go too far. Sure, you can look at word roots and histories and decide that such-and-such a name means Little Warrior or Wise Council or whatever, but the minute you start breaking words down like that you run into the possibility of confusing different meanings. And that becomes even more of an issue when you bring in different languages. I have a friend, for example, whose name I just looked up on a baby-naming site. It tells me his name means Fox or Wily One. Not too bad, eh? Unfortunately, in German it means something a lot grimmer (shall I tell you, or leave those of you with the the baby books to figure out which name means Fox? I think I'll go with the second choice. More fun that way). Name meanings can be confusing in the same language, even, depending on where that language is spoken. I've brought this up before, but consider Fanny. Very few people would name their daughters Fanny nowadays, of course, but for different reasons. In North America it would be considered fairly old-fashioned and would be avoided as slang for the rear end, but in Britain it's thought of as slang for a female's privates instead.
Yep. I don't think meaning is that good a platform to base a name's validity on.
Overall I'm ok with "made-up" names. Some of them can be a little over the top, yes, and some of them make me think that the poor kid will be changing his/her name as soon as it's possible without an insane parent's permission, but as long as the name isn't offensive I don't think that there's a problem. I guess I'm not nearly as fussy about people names as I am about animals and plants, in the end.
Oh, and my name? Actual, real, non-internet name, I mean?
Just think of me as divine, if you must...
But I'm sure I don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment