KOELS [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[martin butterfield <>]

Struggling through a few links provided in this debate it appears from the home page to the World Bird List that the acronym IOC is a reference to the "International Ornithologists' Union, formerly International Ornithological Congress (IOC)" rather than the International Olympic Committee (IOC).  

Given the current name why is the acronym not IOU?

Martin

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

Mark  -  You are right, of course, and I have every sympathy with your point of view.  I was merely giving the reason behind the C&B/BA committee choice of name.  What this illustrates is the difficulty in a great many geographically-based English names.  However, to persist with ‘Pacific’ when ‘Eastern’is the recommended name in Australia does seem to me to be likely to lead to confusion, at least for some people.

 

You may be right about the greater relevance and utility for many purposes of the IOC list.  Perhaps in due course it will be become the standard even in Australia, although first the AOU (and BA)  would need to moderate its (their) bitter opposition to the IOC’s approach to the hyphen.    gd