Re: USAGE: (Mis)Naming a Language

Herman Miller scripsit:

> Later I
> found out that Rissa is the scientific name of a kind of gull called a
> kittiwake (two species: black-legged, R. tridactyla, and red-legged, R.
> brevirostris).
It turns out that even Linnaean names aren't absolutely unique: the
same name can be shared by an animal taxon and a plant taxon.
See http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy.html for such examples
as _Cannabis_, which is a genus of birds as well as of the well-known
and widely cultivated plants.  In principle, I suppose, there could
even be a plant called _Boa constrictor_.

--
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic
realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers,
philologists, psychologists, biologists and neurologists, along with
whatever blood can be got out of grammarians. - Russ Rymer

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