tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post6688353524545462179..comments2023-11-05T08:04:57.962-06:00Comments on Penelopedia: Nature and Garden in Southern Minnesota: Bird Names: To Capitalize or NotAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-90643660095722430482015-10-06T14:11:31.828-05:002015-10-06T14:11:31.828-05:00Just wanted to say that I found your post and its ...Just wanted to say that I found your post and its comments fascinating. I have been very inconsistent in my own use of capitals (and will probably remain so), I am going to link it on my post today, as there are a few readers who will enjoy your thorough research and common sense approach. Many thanks!Black Jack's Carolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18436115876996209227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-19094368713049957462015-07-16T21:55:45.822-05:002015-07-16T21:55:45.822-05:00We just sent out a survey to the readers of our ne...We just sent out a survey to the readers of our newsletters asking if we should capitalized common bird names. Here are the results:<br> http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07eba1feikic3g2ihf/results<br /><br />We also asked a few questions about the use of an apostrophe (birds, bird's, birds').<br /><br />If you would like to take the quiz first, click here:<br><br />http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07eba1feikic3g2ihf/a01nlic716b3v/questions<br /><br />This blog post is the best discussion I have seen on this topic - well done!<br /><br />Good Birding, Peter Thayer<br />Thayer Birding SoftwarePeter Thayerhttp://www.thayerbirding.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-47541695586545319962015-06-09T17:06:46.906-05:002015-06-09T17:06:46.906-05:00This could use another update. :-) Wikipedia did ...This could use another update. :-) Wikipedia did not actually make "an exception" for birds. It's Manual of Style, which has advised lower case for vernacular names since at least 2008, observed for a while (starting, I think in 2012) that there was a long-unresolved dispute about birds and that people shouldn't fight over it in articles in the interim. That dispute <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BIRDCON" rel="nofollow">was resolved in May 2014</a>, in favor of lower case, because Wikipedia's collective editorial voice is that of, as you put it above, "a generalist who writes for a wide audience, not an expert writing for a scholarly audience". <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:LIFE" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia's Manual of Style section on organisms</a> has stably called for lower case, across the board, since then, and the overcapitalization has been removed from bird-related articles. It also had to be cleaned up in many others, where the capitalization had been incidentally spreading to, e.g., primate, rodent, feline, and other non-bird species because inexperienced Wikipedia editors thought the capitalization was some kind of "Wikipedia style"! It was quite a mess.<br /><br />The rationale behind this resolution is also the answer to the coloring book author's dilemma: Unless it's a coloring book for professional ornithologists, you can safely use lower case, just like newspapers, dictionaries, and even non-ornithology-specialized journals publishing ornithology papers. The idea that birders will revolt against non-capitalized names is not one anyone needs to take seriously, or <i>Nature</i> and <i>Scientific American</i> would capitalize them, too; they don't.<br /><br />The pro-capitalization stance confuses several different things, making ultimately for an incoherent argument:<br /><br />* proper names (Lincoln Continental, Johnny Depp, New York); general classes of distinguishable individual things (e.g. species categorizations of animal specimens) don't qualify, from either a linguistics or philosophy approach to the concept of the proper name or proper noun;<br />* capitalization in field guides and other works as an aid to scannability (upper-casing as a form of emphasis);<br />* IOC recommendations for ornithology publications to capitalize as a matter of insider, specialist convention, a practice mirrored in many specialized publications in many fields as an aid to inter-expert clarity, but which cannot be used outside of each specialized context, in general-audience publications, or virtually everything would be capitalized;<br />* disambiguation, in which capitalization is [mis]used to distinguish, e.g., <em>the</em> black-headed gull from gulls that happen to have black heads, something better done simply by writing clearly, as you observed and quoted someone else at <i>Bird Forum</i> saying, too.<br /><br />PS: No one seems to take the American Fisheries Society seriously on their pro-capitalization position. It has had virtually no effect on real-world usage, and in justifying it, AFS reps indicated it was intended for "the fishery user" and "fish biologists", not the general public (Nelson, et al.; "A Capital Case for Common Names of Species of Fishes", <i>Fisheries</i> 27(7): 31-33; July 2002). Even this rationale was rebutted strongly (Kendal, "A Capital Punishment", same publication, pp. 33-34).SMcCandlishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01412237280228550043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-35453623803380916712015-06-02T16:16:32.994-05:002015-06-02T16:16:32.994-05:00Quicksand! I am grateful to witness others struggl...Quicksand! I am grateful to witness others struggle with this issue. Years after breaking wildlife biologists of capitalizing the common names of birds, the American Fisheries Society decided to capitalize the common names of fishes (and introduce the Latin name without parentheses, I might add). I understand that some journals of entomology and archaeology also capitalize common names of species.<br /><br />I edit documents for a variety of audiences, some technical and fisheries specific, some general and multidisciplinary. My approach is also to divide and conquer: fisheries- and avian-specific documents will have capitalized common names, while multidisciplinary documents will not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-43447476438372973192015-05-25T19:59:11.211-05:002015-05-25T19:59:11.211-05:00Hi Amalia -- I think I would opt for consistency t...Hi Amalia -- I think I would opt for consistency throughout the book, one way or the other. I would probably look at other examples of guides that include birds plus other animals and see what looks best in terms of presentation. Page titles of course can follow "title case" capitalization, a separate issue from how you treat the name in the body of the text. Good luck! Sounds like a great project.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-17008056496740344602015-05-25T15:59:48.773-05:002015-05-25T15:59:48.773-05:00I have been agonizing over this decision for month...I have been agonizing over this decision for months and have read every word here and other similar articles several times and still cannot decide what to do. I am writing a coloring book and field guide on Michigan animals. It is divided into the sections of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. When I first ran into this dilemma, I thought, well if birds names are capitalized in guide books, maybe I should just capitalize all of the proper names for consistency. I have since changed all of the other animals back to non-capitalized because I just couldn't do it, knowing it was not correct although I did like the way it made the names stand out. Now I struggle with the decision to leave the bird section with capitalized names or not. I worry about the appearance of consistency with the rest of the book even though birds have their own section. It is a coloring book that reads like a field guide for each animal. Any opinions??Amalianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-85059573895829653782014-10-02T14:18:25.528-05:002014-10-02T14:18:25.528-05:00Personal opinion: capitalization is insane. No ma...Personal opinion: capitalization is insane. No matter how hard you try, common names will never unequivocally identify a taxonomic concept. What do I mean if I write Black-shouldered Kite: the bird from the second edition NatGeo on my desk at work, the one in Europe and Africa, the one in Australia, or a kite with black shoulders (all three!). An unequivocal way would be to refer to a species concept: "black-shouldered kite (Elanus leucurus (Vieillot, 1818))".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-71710285294504716802013-11-07T07:02:14.815-06:002013-11-07T07:02:14.815-06:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-67673835966376333282013-09-05T12:01:09.037-05:002013-09-05T12:01:09.037-05:00Very interesting comments. As I kept reading it oc...Very interesting comments. As I kept reading it occurred to me, well, what is the common name for Homo sapiens and is it capitalized?Milannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-44223936636749523262013-05-17T16:34:58.961-05:002013-05-17T16:34:58.961-05:00I don’t understand why ornithologists (mainly Engl...I don’t understand why ornithologists (mainly English native speakers) continue using “common names” when the binomial nomenclature is a standardized system of naming species of living things more than 200 years ago. <br /><br />Northern Cardinal or Black-capped Chickadee or northern cardinal or black-capped chickadee or Cardenal norteño or parulo cabeci negro??????? <br />Only call him Poecile atricapillus! Even when latin names sounds difficult to no Romance Leguagues speakers…have no sense to create alternative nomenclature systems!!<br /> <br />...And of course…I apologize for my bad English :)<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-84493044264374548702013-01-07T08:11:42.752-06:002013-01-07T08:11:42.752-06:00Bob - Thanks for taking the time to share your vie...Bob - Thanks for taking the time to share your views. It's been interesting to see how many visits this post keeps getting. <br /><br />I did read Eloise Potter's response to Atkins when I did the original research. I do agree with her that ornithological publications should retain their rule. I've never argued against that. I don't agree with her view that "Carolina Wren" is a proper noun in the same sense as Lincoln Continental. That's a brand name, of course, but I do appreciate this analogy much more than the ones I've read where people compare a bird name to a human's name, ignoring the fact that it is being used to describe a type of thing, not an individual. However, I'm not comfortable drawing a direct comparison between trade names, which are often fanciful or coined, and in fact typically need to be more than simply descriptive to be registered, and bird names.<br /><br />Let me clarify again: I don't disagree with the capitalization rule within the ornithological world; I support that rule for that scientific community. You're right; it is always clearer to use the capitalization (at least when coming from a knowledgeable source -- see my observations in the final paragraph below). In some instances, real confusion could arise from not capitalizing the names. And yet, the highly regarded magazines noted in the Atkins quote have concluded there are what they consider to be compelling reasons not to capitalize (though a quick check of Audubon magazine online shows that they do now capitalize common bird names, which doesn't surprise me in the least since they are immersed in the world of birds). <br /><br />The main styleguide for reporters is the AP (Associated Press) Stylebook, and it does not capitalize bird names. I think one of these reasons more mainstream publications sometimes do not follow the capitalization convention is, as I have noted previously, that people who are knowledgeable about birds simply are not likely to use terms like "yellow warbler" and "gray jay" to describe a generic bird of that description -- and readers can trust that I will not do so. As a commenter on a <a href="http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=204022" rel="nofollow">Bird Forum discussion</a> of this topic stated, "[I]n truth you would never write it in that way, you would adjust your language to make clear what you were saying." <br /><br />Your point, I believe, is that if we use capitals we don't need to worry about even the possibility of confusion. Of course, perusing online comments on almost any online article or blog reveals that there are plenty of well-meaning people who wrongly and often randomly capitalize common nouns -- calling someone a beautiful Lady, for example -- and who would probably call a bird a Hawk or an Eagle or a Bluebird, which does not mean they are conveying a particular species. I guess my point is that in all cases you have to consider the credibility of your source. I believe that when writing for a general audience, using language carefully is at least as powerful a tool for clear communication as using capitals for bird names. <br /><br />Thanks again for writing.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-2553739377519769622013-01-06T12:29:27.498-06:002013-01-06T12:29:27.498-06:00P.S. The original Atkins (1983) commentary to whi...P.S. The original Atkins (1983) commentary to which you refer, Penelope, is at https://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v100n04/p1003-p1004.pdf.Bob - Waller Co., TXnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-62870077200263891662013-01-06T11:50:18.174-06:002013-01-06T11:50:18.174-06:00"I saw a yellow warbler." (Just go to a..."I saw a yellow warbler." (Just go to a field guide and see how many warbler species are mostly yellow – not just a Yellow Warbler, Setophaga [formerly Dendroica] petechia.) That's all the example I need to justify capitalization. Penelope, it greatly surprises me that you didn't include Eloise Potter's response to Atkins, available on line at http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v101n04/p0895-p0896.pdf. I can't make my case anywhere close to as well as she does, so take a look at that.<br /><br />As I noted above, I greatly prefer capitalization, not only of bird species but of all biota when it refers to a specific species (e.g., I like woodpeckers, but I like Pileated Woodpeckers). Confusion from not capitalizing is not peculiar to bird names. Frankly, I disagree with you, Penelope: I feel there is no good reason to not capitalize.<br /><br />However, realizing that my position is not generally accepted, and that I certainly cannot convince everyone with whom I work (I do a lot of technical editing), my bottom line is consistency: if you do it for one taxon, then do it for all. And absolutely (as you noted, Penelope), note the scientific name parenthetically if necessary to avoid confusion. I've seen some works that have an appendix listing the scientific names of all species whose common names are mentioned in the main body of the work.<br /><br />Responding to a couple posts: <br /><br />Mary S. December 13, 2010 8:52:00 AM CST: Capitalizing or not has no effect on the problems that Mary mentions: not capitalizing absolutely does not solve them, and capitalizing certainly does not exacerbate them.<br /><br />bandwitch August 3, 2012 2:34:00 AM CDT: To me, this approach seems to be stylistically inconsistent.Bob - Waller Co., TXnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-88937349906064433402012-08-03T02:34:49.739-05:002012-08-03T02:34:49.739-05:00I'm currently writing a fictional work with al...I'm currently writing a fictional work with all of the characters being birds, so I, too, found it odd looking back over my work and seeing so many capitalized names, so I've just decided that for the first usage of the bird name, I'll capitalize it and then, thereafter, I'll move it to lowercase for repeated usage.bandwitchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16478420972365567858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-37380932781010968942012-07-07T19:13:25.691-05:002012-07-07T19:13:25.691-05:00Great post! As a photo-blogger who frequently post...Great post! As a photo-blogger who frequently posts photos of birds, I've often wondered about this convention by birders and wondered how to refer to birds in my posts. Thanks for the information, and I think I may use your conclusions in my own usage.Blakehttp://www.photoabcs.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-46472458232931336582012-05-17T06:08:44.591-05:002012-05-17T06:08:44.591-05:00A Boon -- Thank you for adding the international p...A Boon -- Thank you for adding the international perspective. The general rule in English, if not following the practice of capitalizing all birds' common names, is to capitalize only those words that would be capitalized in other contexts, which as you say are generally geographic proper nouns, like "American goldfinch" or "Canada goose."<br /><br />This blog post gets a lot of traffic, so it's clearly an issue that people struggle with and differ over. I'll repeat that I think the context is important. If you're writing for an ornithological publication, it's important to follow the conventions of that world. If you are writing generally about nature and are likely to be describing other animals and plants as well as birds, as Anonymous wrote, it looks silly to single out bird species for capitalization. While this blog certainly has a bird focus, it's not exclusively in that world and so to me it usually feels distracting to insert the capitals. <br /><br />Readers of this blog can trust that if I use words that form a bird's common name, I am using them in that sense and not as a general description of the bird. I am never going to talk about seeing "yellow warblers" if I just mean I saw some unidentified warblers that were yellow. I also often link bird names to a page on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site so readers can learn more if they wish, so that provides an additional clue that this is the official common name of the bird.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-38073110721088864552012-05-15T03:32:52.308-05:002012-05-15T03:32:52.308-05:00The confusion about capitalisation of animal names...The confusion about capitalisation of animal names is not only present in the English, but also in Dutch (and probably many other languages). The rules in Dutch are simple: no capitals, unless there is a geographic adjective. As a scientific writer of reports and papers in English, I choose to follow non capitals. So it is common seal and harbour porpoise, but then is it (as I saw in Karin's reaction) Alpine ibex and Arctic skua? I can not tell from the review I did on internet. I stick with non capitals.A Boonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-85872022689904417552012-02-03T09:07:35.868-06:002012-02-03T09:07:35.868-06:00Thanks for the comment, Karen. There are good reas...Thanks for the comment, Karen. There are good reasons for both approaches, and in many cases it does make sense to follow the conventions of the particular field. I write for a general audience, and because I value precision I'm not likely to use ambiguous phrases like the ones Dan mentions. Again, I think, if you can say it without confusion, you can write it without confusion. But if you're editing someone else's work and you're not sure of their meaning, that's certainly a problem.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-10284792984341085002012-02-03T08:41:04.423-06:002012-02-03T08:41:04.423-06:00—what Dan said. I'm currently editing a doc th...—what Dan said. I'm currently editing a doc that refers to a great cormorant (research on capitalization is what led me to this blog). So is it a Great Cormorant (specific species of bird) or a great cormorant (a really nifty bird)? My problem is that the doc also includes a reference to a golden eagle, an Apennine wolf, an Alpine ibex, and a Marsican brown bear. I'm having a bit of a nervous breakdown trying to keep it all consistent.Karenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01213337643045832557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-31663465298360530572011-11-09T13:08:18.802-06:002011-11-09T13:08:18.802-06:00I totally agree with your summary, but mostly beca...I totally agree with your summary, but mostly because it look pretentious to only capitalize birds and not other animals or plants. How silly is it to write, "The Bald Eagle sat quietly watching from the red alder branches as a brown bear dined on silver salmon."? Is the eagle somehow more important than the other species present? The argument about description vs. names applies to brown bears, silver salmon, and red alder, and they have never been capitalized. Thanks for a well-written, well-researched, and thoughtful post. I plan to share with my staff.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-60737697831194259132010-12-13T17:34:39.191-06:002010-12-13T17:34:39.191-06:00Here's an additional thought: when we speak, w...Here's an additional thought: when we speak, we can't use capitals. So anything we can say clearly enough to be understood without them can be written without them!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-29068948568285228242010-12-13T17:23:47.415-06:002010-12-13T17:23:47.415-06:00Oh, good, I was hoping to get some feedback/pushba...Oh, good, I was hoping to get some feedback/pushback/conversation going! Keep it coming, please!<br /><br />@Michael - Thanks for your input; I hadn't thought of that. And how exciting to hear your plans to get your son a field guide! There are kid-oriented guides available, as you probably know, but a "real" guide will have a sense of importance about it that I hope he'll pick up on and value!<br /><br />@Richard - Oh, I am a fence-straddler from way back. It's my legal training -- I can argue both sides of an issue until I'm blue in the face, but actually reaching a decision can be hard for me.<br /><br />@Sue- Thanks!<br /><br />@Mary - I was hoping you would chime in, with all your writing and editing experience. That's a very telling point about the difference it makes when a common name clearly refers to one and only one species, compared to fields in which that's not the case. You're right, that does make a difference, and it didn't occur to me that that might be why some of the other branches of study don't use the caps for common names.<br /><br />@Dan - I was hoping you would chime in too! Bird names are challenging because they so often include descriptive words. But surely the notable publications and authors mentioned have found admirable ways to deal with the question by choosing their words more carefully. You'd probably say "I saw a very brown (or muddy) blue jay today," or you'd say "I saw some warblers; I wasn't sure what kind, but they were yellow," rather than "I saw some yellow warblers" if you didn't mean to indicate the species name. You're absolutely right that a policy of using caps avoids these issues, but I don't think they're insuperable. And the longer or more complicated the name, the less I object to the caps, somehow. I don't claim to have worked it all out, but I love digging into questions like this.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11830553767527010173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-40392917440984310232010-12-13T13:58:47.094-06:002010-12-13T13:58:47.094-06:00If you don't capitalize common names, how are ...If you don't capitalize common names, how are you going to tell a brown jay (a muddy Blue Jay) from a Brown Jay (a bird found in Mexico)?Dan Tallmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11866930576252147015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-27547472036305053572010-12-13T08:52:44.916-06:002010-12-13T08:52:44.916-06:00This is an interesting question. The reason we do ...This is an interesting question. The reason we do not capitalized common names in the plant world, which is the one I'm familiar with, is that the same common name can refer to more than one genus and species or that multiple common names can refer to a single genus and species. I'm amazed that birders have a single common name aligned with a single genus and species. They must be more organized than gardeners!Mary S.http://mynortherngarden.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2139421497584248575.post-3601768778885219822010-12-12T22:21:28.289-06:002010-12-12T22:21:28.289-06:00I'm with you! Great post.I'm with you! Great post.Sue at EcoStrideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11331794793125564866noreply@blogger.com