Greetings, Can someone explain, please, why HANZAB, Pizzey & Knight (8th Ed), and Morcombe field guides list White-cheeked Honeyeater as Phylidonyris nigra, and IOC and Christidis & Boles list it as Phylidonyris niger? Thanks.
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So close Ross, not a bad guess! According to HBW Alive it means “fond of pleasure” (phileo/hedone) http://www.hbw.com/dictionary/definition/philedon Cheers, Chris On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:37 PM, Ross Macfarlane (TPG) < rmacfarl@tpg.com.au> wrote:
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I did Latin in first year high school. I deliberately failed the end of year exams, so that I would not have to travel any further along that road to madness. Took Geography instead, much more interesting. Carl
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Greetings, I don’t intend to get into the mire that results from deciding what is a spelling error or a typographical error, nor who decides gender for whom, but Philip’s first sentence helps reinforce just how confusing this issue is. In the Christidis and Boles ‘Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds’, published by CSIRO some 15 years after their RAOU monograph, they have changed their minds and used Phylidonyris niger while still quoting Bechstein 1811. Clive. On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Philip Veerman < pveerman@pcug.org.au> wrote:
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Honeyeater in Latin is Meliphaga, which is of course the original genus name for Lewin’s honeyeater etc. Philedon sounds more like Greek – philo- for like, and -don for tooth. In other words, sweet tooth! Unless this by some miracle happens to be correct, it’s a joke, Joyce! —–Original Message—– Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 2:25 PM Cc: ‘Birding-Aus’ Clive wrote that “Christidis & Boles list it as Phylidonyris niger” but not in my copy. Christidis & Boles (RAOU Monograph 2 1994) give it as Phylidonyris nigra and quote Bechstein 1811. It is also given (by Cayley) as Meliornis, meaning honey + bird. Not that I know much, but hard to see how Latin Philedon = honeyeater. Wouldn’t phil relate to lover, rather than eater? (I would have thought eater would be phag. Is edon = honey? I would have thought the issue comes down to what was the spelling given at the time it was first described, being the correct name, unless there is a reason to determine that as invalid or changed. Should priority of name be changed just because of mismatch of gender between genus and species name? What a crazy idea that is, especially if it is as hard to decide as it would appear to be here. I am amused by Carl’s “is a bit of a manmade word”. Assuming that man includes women, I wonder what other sort of word exists. (Carl first left the n out of Phylidonyris and in the 2nd message extended this by leaving out the ny.) Some of these changes happen in books just because someone made a mistake and many other books copied the mistake. Good example is in the Sparrowhawk wrongly listed in many books as Accipiter cirrhocephalus instead of Accipiter cirrocephalus. Philip —–Original Message—– Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 10:49 AM Cc: Birding-Aus Hmm, that is slightly different to what is said in James Jobling’s “A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. If Phylidoris is one of those Greek-Latin hybrid words, it probably should be given a specific epithet that is neuter. No doubt whoever agreed on the name thought they were a better classicist than they actually were. You are right about giving words a gender, a right pain. Could be worse though. Latin could be still alive and well and we would have to deal with the declension of nouns on to of their gender. No wonder the Roman Empire declined. Carl Clifford
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It was too early in the morning, after a late night, for accurate typing, Phillip.
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Clive wrote that “Christidis & Boles list it as Phylidonyris niger” but not in my copy. Christidis & Boles (RAOU Monograph 2 1994) give it as Phylidonyris nigra and quote Bechstein 1811. It is also given (by Cayley) as Meliornis, meaning honey + bird. Not that I know much, but hard to see how Latin Philedon = honeyeater. Wouldn’t phil relate to lover, rather than eater? (I would have thought eater would be phag. Is edon = honey? I would have thought the issue comes down to what was the spelling given at the time it was first described, being the correct name, unless there is a reason to determine that as invalid or changed. Should priority of name be changed just because of mismatch of gender between genus and species name? What a crazy idea that is, especially if it is as hard to decide as it would appear to be here. I am amused by Carl’s “is a bit of a manmade word”. Assuming that man includes women, I wonder what other sort of word exists. (Carl first left the n out of Phylidonyris and in the 2nd message extended this by leaving out the ny.) Some of these changes happen in books just because someone made a mistake and many other books copied the mistake. Good example is in the Sparrowhawk wrongly listed in many books as Accipiter cirrhocephalus instead of Accipiter cirrocephalus. Philip —–Original Message—– Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 10:49 AM Cc: Birding-Aus Hmm, that is slightly different to what is said in James Jobling’s “A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. If Phylidoris is one of those Greek-Latin hybrid words, it probably should be given a specific epithet that is neuter. No doubt whoever agreed on the name thought they were a better classicist than they actually were. You are right about giving words a gender, a right pain. Could be worse though. Latin could be still alive and well and we would have to deal with the declension of nouns on to of their gender. No wonder the Roman Empire declined. Carl Clifford
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Yeah, crazy how for instance in German everything has a gender. Bedroom, house, horse, car, train, ship ( which are der, which are die, and which are das?) — makes it all much more difficult. At least we only have ” she’s alright mate” for everything. I learnt some German at school and it made everything so much harder having to remember the gender of inanimate objects. Apparently we have masculine trains while our hair is neuter. Totally illogical. Wallie. —–Original Message—– Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 9:15 AM Cc: Birding-Aus According to “Australian Bird Names a complete guide” by Ian Fraser and Jeannie Gray the Philedon element comes from the Greek for “attractive”, The Cinnyris bit does link back to sunbird . The business of gender of names all makes me glad we speak English, as with all the irrationalities in that language, at least we avoided daftness like having to decide what gender to apply to words such as the French “l’internet”! Martin Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
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Hmm, that is slightly different to what is said in James Jobling’s “A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. If Phylidoris is one of those Greek-Latin hybrid words, it probably should be given a specific epithet that is neuter. No doubt whoever agreed on the name thought they were a better classicist than they actually were. You are right about giving words a gender, a right pain. Could be worse though. Latin could be still alive and well and we would have to deal with the declension of nouns on to of their gender. No wonder the Roman Empire declined. Carl Clifford
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According to “Australian Bird Names a complete guide” by Ian Fraser and Jeannie Gray the Philedon element comes from the Greek for “attractive”, The Cinnyris bit does link back to sunbird . The business of gender of names all makes me glad we speak English, as with all the irrationalities in that language, at least we avoided daftness like having to decide what gender to apply to words such as the French “l’internet”! Martin Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
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Hi Clive, Bit of an update on the mystery. I have been doing a bit of a rummage through the library, and it seems that Phylidoyris is a bit of a manmade word. It comes from the French, Phylédon (Honeyeater), which comes from the Latin Philedon (honeyeater), cobbled together with the Latin Cynnyris (sunbird). No wonder the taxonomists couldn’t decide which sex the word was. Probably should have been called nigrum, the neuter form. Carl Clifford
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Clive, Looks like there is some confusion over whether the word Phylidonyris is male or female, as Nigra is feminine and Niger is male. The specific epithet must always follow the gender of the genus, if you are using Latin for your nomenclature. It is not an uncommon mistake in scientific nomenclature. Carl Clifford
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Hi Clive, This appears on the BirdLife International site: Maybe it is just a grammatical correction of the Latin/Greek. Sonja
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