I also cannot fathom this policy of all lower-case names in publishing.
It looks clumsy and as you say can be confusing. For HANZAB, we
capitalised all actual names, such as Australian Raven. They are proper
nouns and as such should have initial capitalisation. I won't mention
hyphenated names, that's a different and more contentious issue. If we
were referring to ravens in general, then lower case. That is simple and
easy to understand, and takes away the potential confusion of any
overseas corvid simply called Raven. I don't know where or when this
convention began, but it's a right pain in the neck! My theory is it has
been deemed appropriate by person or persons unknown with little
scientific background.
On 10/04/2012 12:35 PM, Richard Nowotny wrote:
I know this topic has received attention on Birding-Aus previously but my
interest was re-awakened by reading in an ornithological book of "little
owls" and being reminded of the futility of trying to determine whether the
author is referring to smaller owls in general, a particular group of small
owls, or Little Owls Athene noctua. I continue to be baffled by the
widespread publishing convention (used by most newspapers and books) not to
capitilise the common names of bird species (and all other biological
species for that matter).
Is anyone with publishing experience/knowledge able to explain why this
convention has been adopted and perpetuated, in spite of its obvious
failings in regard to clarity of meaning, particularly when the name
includes words in everyday use such as little, common, long-toed, singing,
etc?
Richard NOWOTNY
Port Melbourne, Victoria
M: 0438 224 456
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