“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive” ~ Sir Walter Scott.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Binomial nomenclature

redit is given to the Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, for popularising "binomial nomenclature" when he invented the convention of organizing species within a hierarchical classification, based upon shared characteristics. He identified species and then limited the use of a two-word reference to that species so that no two would have the same name. His works, exceptionally well-received by botanists of the time, served as the catalyst for this two-part naming system to become the standardised method in both zoological and botanical circles.

Binomial nomenclature assigned standard references to the living world and broke through language barriers worldwide. Every species would be unambiguously identified with just two words. The name being a combination of a generic or genus name and a second descriptive element to better define the species characteristics. The terms used were most frequently derived from either the Latin or Ancient Greek lexicon or a combination of the two.

The whole premise behind the Linnaean systematic classification was to avoid confusion over various species.

We can see how helpful binomial nomenclature is in defining specific characteristic reference by way of this hypothetical and fictitious example. Homo (man) + canadensis (Canadian), or Homo canadensis would identify a particular man as a “Canadian man”.

You might be asking, "What's all this got to do with this story?” That's just it, a name ~ I was searching for name that would identify Doug specifically. Not a moniker he adopted while posting on public message groups, but a given name. An arduous and daunting task, were it not for an unexpected stroke of luck and serendipity.

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