Latin names: WHY?

[b101uk]

A huge portion of the English language is derived from Latin

 

err not quite, if a pure dictionary search is done it comes to ~<30% of words, however most of them words are "scientific" and as such are seldom used by a vast majority of the population and only have a use in/by small select groups.

 

if "scientific" words are ignored only ~6% of the English language is based on Latin.

 

You will find NO academic writings that say English is based on Latin, as it is a Germanic language as has been stated a few times in this thread.

[Dean Lofthouse]

What I meant to say is Latin has crept into our language not derived from

[ctenicera]

Interesting thread guys

 

I'm in agreement with those who say scientific names are essential - they are. However, I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that many organisms don't have English names at all and in this case referral to them is only possible by using the scientific name - hence making that name essential.

 

Take insects and fungi for example (many relevant to arb yeah) - the vast majority of these species even here in the UK don't have English names at all. If anyone wants to come up with English names for the 10's of thousands of insect and fungi spp. in the UK then be my guest (a life's work there perhaps)!!

 

To be fair though, in normal conversation with a mate I wouldn't usually go harping on about Quercus rober or Fraxinus exelsior.

[likeitorlumpit]

Those that use the system all the time are obviously presuming that those that don't, never do.

 

I use it when needed antione, when I'm ordering trees from Ashridge or dealing with an application.

 

Ninety percent of us are lowly tree cutters with work that takes us to the edge of our towns and villages, we are not international arborists travelling the world

 

People using Latin unneccessarily remind me of the majority of people on the wine isle at morrisons, they are clambering for a higher status than their natural ability will allow

 

thats hillarious- wine isle at morrisons= higher status

me- I'm in the beer aisle at waitrose:001_tt2:

[Adam Bourne]

In the mid 90's there was a murder inquiry somewhere down south, they had a susspect but could not find any hard evidence to place this person at the scene.... then after a local detective went to the suspects house for some reason or another they came across his truck....in the back was a broken branch from an oak tree a Holm oak, Quercus ilex..... Now not knowing much about trees or plant life the detective went to the murder scene to see what he could find,....few hours later he had come across (what he thought was the same tree as the branch he had found....he called for forensic detectives to see what they could put together.

 

The forensic team had discovered that the tree was infact a holm oak, or a mediterainen oak, or a holly oak or evergreen oak and many more names......But the latin name quercus ilex put all these names in to one box.

 

However...this was still not enough evidence, Yeah sure they had a branch in his truck from a spieces of tree that just so happen to be at the murder scene but after some reseach from local tree officers there just so happened to be 45 more quercus ilex in the sourounding area....

 

so back to the drawing board it was....or not for the detective who thought that the tree was still the answer....if in someway he could prove that this branch was from the same tree as the one from the murder scene... so he decided to go back to the forensic team with a theory.......

 

he wanted to know if there was anychance that a tree had a totally Unique dna strand like everything else on this planet...so they set out and got samples from all the other quercus ilex in the area and started the reseach.......

 

the results where asstonishing, There were identified over 45,000 protein-coding genes, more than any other organism sequenced to date, approximately twice as many as present in the human genome. and they also match the branch with the tree from the murder scene....(case closed)

 

there was no paticuluar reason for me writing this story only to share with those that did not know about trees having dna, as for latin names there will come a time when the names are usefull so not lerning them is not going to be detremental to your climbing or understanding of how the tree timber your working on reacts different at different times of the year.....nor will it affect you getting a job and/or pricing work up but it does help and it makes things simple only for those who know what your talking about.....

 

unlike me i have know idea what i'm talking about i was just trying to place my order from tescos and ended up here....

[Fungus]

So why do we still use these latin names?. Ive worked with trees since 1985 and never has anyone called a tree by its latin name

 

Because otherwise it would be impossible for me to contribute to the fora (= latin) on tree health care and fungi (= the international latin term for mushrooms and toadstools) as you mycophobic (= latin) British - other then the Dutch, German and French - only have a few English names for the thousands of indigenous species (= latin) of macrofungi (= latin) of the U.K.

[Fungus]

I'm in agreement with those who say scientific names are essential - they are. However, I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that many organisms don't have English names at all and in this case referral to them is only possible by using the scientific name - hence making that name essential.

Take insects and fungi for example (many relevant to arb yeah) - the vast majority of these species even here in the UK don't have English names at all. If anyone wants to come up with English names for the 10's of thousands of insect and fungi spp. in the UK then be my guest (a life's work there perhaps)!! To be fair though, in normal conversation with a mate I wouldn't usually go harping on about Quercus rober or Fraxinus exelsior.

 

I totally agree (see my before post), although I hope that you in future will say Quercus rober and write Q. robur . And by the way, we Dutch have Dutch names for all insects and (macro)fungi, which are indigenous to our country.

[Pete Bannister]

Some people have it, some don't.

 

you mean like a sense of irony..maybe?

 

The wine drinking culture is a typical example of people acting like sheep

 

no Dean ..thats a sheep dipping culture mate....

but then maybe in Huddersfield things is different?

[treequip]

The wine drinking culture is a typical example of people acting like sheep

 

Sheep drinking wine???

[Pete Bannister]

thats what I've heared too; well in Huddersfield at any rate. But then of course.. they're in the Pennine rain shaddow there so they might get thirsty.. init ?