Historically, English names, common names, vernacular names, of animals and
plants have been considered to be common.nouns. This is apparent in any
dictionary. However, it is entirely inconsistent that geographical locality
names, corporation names and people names are accorded the respect of Proper
Nouns and species names are not. ..."but surely the common names of orgnaisms
are not propper nouns" only due to historical snobbery.
David James,
in Jakarta
==============================
________________________________
From: Jeremy O'Wheel <>
To: Carl Clifford <>
Cc: ; Mark Stanley <>
Sent: Wednesday, 4 January 2012 10:04 AM
Subject: BBC story - capitalising bird names
Sorry if I open a can of worms, but surely the common names of
organisms are not proper nouns, and so should not be capitalised. In
cases where using the common name could cause confusion (ie. with a
little penguin), I would have thought the grammatically correct
response would be to put inverted commas around the name. "There was
a 'little penguin' in the water" seems pretty clear to me.
Jeremy
On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Carl Clifford <> wrote:
> Sean,
>
> Lack of capitalisation is a pet bugbear of mine as well and it can certainly
> lead to some interesting reading at times. I have never forgotten an example
> of what non-capitalisation can lead to that was drummed into me by my
> English Master, "I had to help my Uncle Jack off a horse". Removing the
> capitals does give a somewhat different meaning to the sentence.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Clifford
>
>
>
> On 04/01/2012, at 7:52 AM, SeanDooley wrote:
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> This is a pet peeve of mine, (and one that has been discussed before on this
> forum so I won't go into the debate about why we should capitalise bird
> names). While I don't specifically know why the BBC have gone down the
> lower-case path, I do know that they are not Robinson Crusoe in this, and
> that this is the standard in the publishing world.
>
> I had to make a strong representation to my publisher to maintain
> capitalisation of bird names in my books The Big Twitch and Anoraks to
> Zitting Cisticola. I have never been successful when writing for other
> publications such as The Age. Even Australian Geographic, which prides
> itself on accuracy when it comes to the natural world refuse point blank to
> stray from the standard lower-case approach. More than one editor I have
> dealt with has privately admitted they would prefer to use capitalisation
> but are bound by the house style. And thus readers will never know that when
> they read the line "A little penguin popped its head out of the water next
> to the boat" whether the bird in question was the species Eudyptula minor or
> whether it was a small penguin of indeterminate species.
>
> Sean Dooley
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> On Behalf Of Mark Stanley
> Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 10:58 PM
> To:
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] BBC story - capitalising bird names
>
> I noticed that the article in the link supplied by David uses lower-case
> letters for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper's name and I recall this issue being
> raised before on birding-aus. Has anyone found out why the BBC takes this
> approach? I have asked them myself but not very hopeful of a response.
>
> Mark Stanley
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:47:44 +1000
> From: david taylor <>
> To: " Aus" <>
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Project to save the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
> Message-ID: <>
> Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
>
> This is worth waching
>
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16215541
>
>
>
> cheers
>
> David Taylor
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