Death to Tyrants (Sic semper tyrannis) - Some Thoughts on Flycatchers (2 Viewers)

[DMW]

It's as if you were saying "the name Tit was invented by taking random letters to give it to various birds without there being a species at the origin of this name". I often make the comparison with French nomenclature because for that, this vision there, it doesn't work despite popular (field) usages. I wonder how it happens for other languages

I probably didn't explain myself very well. The application of the vernacular "tit" (which I believe was a general word to describe small things) for small birds probably goes back hundreds of years, and eventually landed in modern usage as the name for a number of bird species from different families. We coped perfectly well with this abomination until recently, but now it's suddenly important to correct this imperfection and restrict the name Tit to the Chickadees, in case somebody somewhere suffers from confusion...

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

, but now it's suddenly important to correct this imperfection and restrict the name Tit to the Chickadees (you mean Paridae, I guess), in case somebody somewhere suffers from confusion...

In my nomenclatorist mind, It seems very logical to me 😂

 

[DMW]

In my nomenclatorist mind, It seems very logical to me 😂

This is why nomencloratists should stick to stick to scientific names where they have thousands of obscure rules to argue over 😏

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

This is why nomencloratists should stick to stick to scientific names where they have thousands of obscure rules to argue over 😏

I specialize in French names because while working on them, I realized that CINFO (an old French committee) had made some unforgivable sh*t (bordering on incompetence, it's almost shameful).

 

[Trinovid]

Which is exactly the point... a name is a name, an identifier, it doesn't have to mean anything.

This very well sums up my feelings on having to change bird names for the general public, but if there were to be any merit in relabeling it should be done in the realm of genealogical naming alone.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Which is exactly the point... a name is a name, an identifier, it doesn't have to mean anything.

But the names DO mean things - whether we agree on that meaning or not. This is the reason that the "taxonomy by numbers" approach to cataloging them did not take off - obviously there is more than "just" an identifier there, despite the fact that being an identifier is indeed the most important part of what a name does. If not, why would anyone here be bothered?

To the people who named birds before the era when DNA was even a notion, a "tit" was defined as a little active bird that makes a noise that sort of sounds like that. A "flycatcher" is a type of bird that sallies from a perch to catch flying insects. The linguistic taxonomy of the situation was perfectly sensible.

But like it or not, our understanding has changed as has our language. If enough people decide that the definition of a "tit" is a Parid - then that is what it is because that is how language works. We no longer refer much to mudhens and bullbats, nor pigeon hawks and man o'war birds, nor solitary vireos and hedge accentors. All those names meant something more at one time; but we have words that we have collectively decided are "more" meaningful - enough to be adopted. If a name has doesn't mean anything, people have little incentive to adopt it.

I'll add that meaning can and has come from both the bottom up and the top down - its easy to find examples of both.

 

[DMW]

But the names DO mean things - whether we agree on that meaning or not. This is the reason that the "taxonomy by numbers" approach to cataloging them did not take off - obviously there is more than "just" an identifier there, despite the fact that being an identifier is indeed the most important part of what a name does. If not, why would anyone here be bothered?

To the people who named birds before the era when DNA was even a notion, a "tit" was defined as a little active bird that makes a noise that sort of sounds like that. A "flycatcher" is a type of bird that sallies from a perch to catch flying insects. The linguistic taxonomy of the situation was perfectly sensible.

But like it or not, our understanding has changed as has our language. If enough people decide that the definition of a "tit" is a Parid - then that is what it is because that is how language works. We no longer refer much to mudhens and bullbats, nor pigeon hawks and man o'war birds, nor solitary vireos and hedge accentors. All those names meant something more at one time; but we have words that we have collectively decided are "more" meaningful - enough to be adopted. If a name has doesn't mean anything, people have little incentive to adopt it.

I'll add that meaning can and has come from both the bottom up and the top down - its easy to find examples of both.

Sure, names have changed or been filtered over time, which is what I alluded to when I used the expression "landed in modern usage". Popular ornithology is a relatively recent phenomenon and we grew up with the names that were used in the seminal field guides. They became the de facto common names in the sense they had almost universal usage. What I'm arguing against is changing these now for the sake of taxonomic conformity.

Take your example of "Hedge Accentor". I don't think I've ever heard anybody call it that. Some early birders might have dallied with "Hedge Sparrow" for a while, but it's pretty universally known as Dunnock in Britain. "Dunnock" doesn't tell you anything about it's taxonomy, or really anything at all if you only know modern English, and it doesn't have to. We have the binomial system for that.

But, inevitably, somebody is going to start using Hedge Accentor in publications because it's an untidy loose end. Meanwhile, I've seen 3 orders of magnitude more Altai Accentors in the Himalayas than in the Altai Mountains, which bothers me not in the least.

 

[Trinovid]

Sitting here in the U.S., which is a living Monty Python reference itself these days, it might just happen.

Well at least the good thing is that it just recently ended and is quickly improving now.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Sure, names have changed or been filtered over time, which is what I alluded to when I used the expression "landed in modern usage". Popular ornithology is a relatively recent phenomenon and we grew up with the names that were used in the seminal field guides. They became the de facto common names in the sense they had almost universal usage. What I'm arguing against is changing these now for the sake of taxonomic conformity.

Take your example of "Hedge Accentor". I don't think I've ever heard anybody call it that. Some early birders might have dallied with "Hedge Sparrow" for a while, but it's pretty universally known as Dunnock in Britain. "Dunnock" doesn't tell you anything about it's taxonomy, or really anything at all if you only know modern English, and it doesn't have to. We have the binomial system for that.

I'm agreed on this point - that advocating change SOLELY for taxonomic conformity is often a waste, and that the urge from some to make common names do what scientific names already accomplished... is perhaps misplaced.

But sometimes taxonomic conformity aligns with the public will: it has to be accepted that there are a lot of people who do indeed use Bearded Reedling and so on - it is a part of language now. And... so is Bearded Tit - because that is also in use, as indicated by your understanding of the bird I'm talking about in both cases. Its true that "Hedge Sparrow" is part of language too... but in a more archaic/antique sense than a serious sense. I think far fewer people would understand what a Hedge Sparrow is than a Bearded Tit.

I suppose that for me it boils down to - are we talking about what language "should" do... or what it "does" do? I just feel that the latter is far more useful to nomenclature - and that's why I focused so much on "meaning."

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

I suppose Peregrine would work, too.

Male or female?

 

[Paul Clapham]

Exactly my point, why do we need to use colonial names that don't make sense?

Yes, this was a problem for me way back when I started birding. I was a grad student in Los Angeles and I had my new Peterson guide. There were all these sparrows around which were surely Black-throated Sparrows, because black throats. But Peterson said they lived in the desert and not in the city. What? But eventually I found the House Sparrow hidden in the back of the book, not with the sparrows like you would expect.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Yes, this was a problem for me way back when I started birding. I was a grad student in Los Angeles and I had my new Peterson guide. There were all these sparrows around which were surely Black-throated Sparrows, because black throats. But Peterson said they lived in the desert and not in the city. What? But eventually I found the House Sparrow hidden in the back of the book, not with the sparrows like you would expect.

But note that this is a problem with the book organization, not the naming. If they were instead called Black-throated Juncos, would you still have known to look in the back of the book?

 

[Paul Clapham]

But note that this is a problem with the book organization, not the naming. If they were instead called Black-throated Juncos, would you still have known to look in the back of the book?

To clean up my ancient memory, I got the book off the shelf. There's a "Grosbeaks, Finches, Sparrows, Buntings" chapter where many sparrows are found. There's also a "Weaver Finches, etc" chapter which contains only the House Sparrow. So, not at the back of the book, but in a different chapter with a name which obscures its contents. Reading the book from cover to cover solved the problem, but I was thrown off for a while.

 

[njlarsen]

I am torn on this one. In one way, I feel this could be a support for an approach which some authors have argued, that similar birds should be near each other in field guides no matter what the taxonomic context is. On the other hand, I read (possibly misread??) my first US field guide to have one section with Warblers and Vireos. It was not until I got a different book that I realized the fundamental differences between these two groups (they were not placed near each other), and it thereafter became easier to identify them.

Niels

 

[Mysticete]

I am torn on this one. In one way, I feel this could be a support for an approach which some authors have argued, that similar birds should be near each other in field guides no matter what the taxonomic context is. On the other hand, I read (possibly misread??) my first US field guide to have one section with Warblers and Vireos. It was not until I got a different book that I realized the fundamental differences between these two groups (they were not placed near each other), and it thereafter became easier to identify them.

Niels

I had that same experience with vireos and warblers as a new birder.

I personally prefer a taxonomic order, even if it has resulted in some changes (which should quickly decreasing) in where things are located in the last couple of decades. I feel like sorting species in other ways becomes increasingly arbitrary, since there are plenty of bird groups that sort of fit in multiple places. Rails are a great example of this...you have some obvious duck like species such as coots, while other species might be more reminiscent of shorebirds or gamebirds.

 

[Kirk Roth]

I had that same experience with vireos and warblers as a new birder.

I personally prefer a taxonomic order, even if it has resulted in some changes (which should quickly decreasing) in where things are located in the last couple of decades. I feel like sorting species in other ways becomes increasingly arbitrary, since there are plenty of bird groups that sort of fit in multiple places. Rails are a great example of this...you have some obvious duck like species such as coots, while other species might be more reminiscent of shorebirds or gamebirds.

Other tricky examples can include species or groups can resemble multiple others. I think that the better field guides find somewhat elegant ways to deal with this - for example the National Geographic guides include a Hutton's Vireo illustration near the kinglets for comparison and the Sibley Guide has a "warbler-like birds" callout at the start of the warbler section- but at basis are more or less taxonomically ordered.

If one were to be anal about lumping birds with similarities, warblers present a huge challenge in North America - some would have to be grouped with wrens, vireos, tanagers, finches, and some in multiples of those if we are to be "comprehensive." The old Audubon guides organized all songbirds by color and that was beginner-friendly albeit with some other major emergent flaws.

Realistically I think most birders go through their own arc of learning that similarity assumptions are not valid and they eventually land on a preference for taxonomic order - because while all orders are problematic at least that one is objective and therefore "translates" consistently to multiple media. (e.g. I always know where to flip in a book to find the bluebirds). I think its a good thing for birders to have to go through this learning process - it eventually builds a more sophisticated understanding of the birds and helps get us beyond the "birding by colors" stage.

 

[Mysticete]

Most of the time when I see complaints about taxonomic order it's people being confused on where to find birds and unhappy that things have gotten moved around. It's really not that dissimilar to the complaints about name changes

 

[THE_FERN]

Most of the time when I see complaints about taxonomic order it's people being confused on where to find birds and unhappy that things have gotten moved around. It's really not that dissimilar to the complaints about name changes

Mostly a problem with paper databases (books) where one or a few entry orders are imposed on you. More or less irrelevant for e- guides. There name stability more important so you can complete Crtl-Fs successfully