Editing Common name (section)

== Coining common names ==
In scientific binomial nomenclature, names commonly are derived from [[Classical Latin|classical]] or [[Neo-Latin|modern]] [[Latin language|Latin]] or [[Greek language|Greek]] or [[Latinisation of names|Latinised]] forms of vernacular words or coinages; such names generally are difficult for laymen to learn, remember, and pronounce and so, in such books as field guides, biologists commonly publish lists of coined common names. Many examples of such common names simply are attempts to translate the scientific name into English or some other vernacular. Such translation may be confusing in itself, or confusingly inaccurate,<ref name="isbn0-8018-8221-4">{{cite book |last1=Reeder |first1=Deeann |last2=Wilson |first2=Don W. |title=Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |year=2005 |isbn=0-8018-8221-4 }}</ref> for example, ''gratiosus'' does not mean "gracile" and ''gracilis'' does not mean "graceful".<ref name="CasselLatin">{{cite book |last1=Marchant |first1=J. R. V. |last2=Charles |first2=Joseph F. | title = Cassell's Latin Dictionary | publisher = Cassell | location = London | year = 1952  }}</ref><ref name="LatinTucker">{{cite book | last= Tucker |first=T. G.| title = A Concise Etymological Dictionary of Latin | publisher = Max Niemeyer Verlag | location = Halle (Saale)| year = 1931  }}</ref>

The practice of coining common names has long been discouraged; [[Alphonse de Candolle|de Candolle's]] ''Laws of Botanical Nomenclature'', 1868,<ref>{{cite book|last=de Candolle |first=A.|others=translated by [[Hugh Algernon Weddell]]|year=1868|title=Laws of Botanical Nomenclature adopted by the International Botanical Congress held at Paris in August 1867; together with an Historical Introduction and Commentary by Alphonse de Candolle, Translated from the French|publisher=L. Reeve and Co |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924001723604}} p. 36, 72</ref> the non-binding recommendations that form the basis of the modern (now binding) [[International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants]] contains the following:{{blockquote|Art. 68. Every friend of science ought to be opposed to the introduction into a modern language of names of plants that are not already there unless they are derived from a Latin botanical name that has undergone but a slight alteration. ... ought the fabrication of names termed vulgar names, totally different from Latin ones, to be proscribed. The public to whom they are addressed derives no advantage from them because they are novelties. [[John Lindley|Lindley's]] work, ''The Vegetable Kingdom,'' would have been better relished in England had not the author introduced into it so many new English names, that are to be found in no dictionary, and that do not preclude the necessity of learning with what Latin names they are synonymous. A tolerable idea may be given of the danger of too great a multiplicity of vulgar names, by imagining what geography would be, or, for instance, the Post-office administration, supposing every town had a totally different name in every language.}}

Various bodies and the authors of many technical and semi-technical books do not simply adapt existing common names for various organisms; they try to coin (and put into common use) comprehensive, useful, authoritative, and standardised lists of new names. The purpose typically is:

* to create names from scratch where no common names exist
* to impose a particular choice of name where there is more than one common name
* to improve existing common names
* to replace them with names that conform more to the relatedness of the organisms

Other attempts to reconcile differences between widely separated regions, traditions, and languages, by arbitrarily imposing nomenclature, often reflect narrow perspectives and have unfortunate outcomes. For example, members of the genus ''[[Burhinus]]'' occur in Australia, Southern Africa, Eurasia, and South America. A recent trend in field manuals and bird lists is to use the name "[[Stone-curlew|thick-knee]]" for members of the genus. This, in spite of the fact that the majority of the species occur in non-English-speaking regions and have various common names, not always English. For example, "Dikkop" is the centuries-old South African vernacular name for their two local species: ''[[Spotted thick-knee|Burhinus capensis]]'' is the Cape dikkop (or "gewone dikkop",<ref name="isbn0-624-00533-X">{{cite book |last1=Bosman |first1=D. B. |last2=Van der Merwe |first2=I. W. |last3=Hiemstra |first3=L. W. |name-list-style=amp |title=Tweetalige Woordeboek Afrikaans-Engels |publisher=Tafelberg-uitgewers |year=1984 |isbn=0-624-00533-X }}</ref> not to mention the presumably much older Zulu name "umBangaqhwa"); ''[[Water thick-knee|Burhinus vermiculatus]]'' is the "water dikkop".<ref name="isbn0-620-07681-X">{{cite book |last1=Lockwood |first1=Geoffrey |last2=Roberts |first2=Austin |last3=Maclean |first3=Gordon L. |last4=Newman |first4=Kenneth B. |title=Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa |publisher=Trustees of the J. Voelcker Bird Book Fund |location=Cape Town |year=1985 |isbn=0-620-07681-X }}</ref><ref name="isbn0-620-34053-3">{{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Austin |title=Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa |publisher=Trustees of the J. Voelcker Bird Book Fund |year=2005 |isbn=0-620-34053-3 }}</ref> The thick joints in question are not even, in fact, the birds' knees, but the [[Intertarsal articulations|intertarsal joints]]—in lay terms the ankles. Furthermore, not all species in the genus have "thick knees", so the thickness of the "knees" of some species is not of clearly descriptive significance. The family [[Stone-curlew|Burhinidae]] has members that have various common names even in English, including "[[stone curlew]]s",<ref name="ChristidisBoles2008">{{cite book|first1=Les |last1=Christidis |first2=Walter |last2=Boles|title=Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SFP9P1i-PoEC&pg=PA129|date=January 2008|publisher=Csiro Publishing|isbn=978-0-643-06511-6|pages=129–}}</ref> so the choice of the name "thick-knees" is not easy to defend but is a clear illustration of the hazards of the facile coinage of terminology.<ref name="isbn3-11-010661-2">{{cite book |translator-last=Scott |translator-first=Thomas A. |title=Concise Encyclopedia Biology |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |location=Berlin |year=1996 |isbn=3-11-010661-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/conciseencyclope00scot }}</ref>