Re: CHAT Almost well-formed southern ape (wasRe: Teknonyms)

Quoting R A Brown <ray@...>:

> Wesley Parish wrote:
> > On Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:24, Jim Henry wrote:
>
> [snip]
> >>................... "Matronym"
> >>seems to be one of those Greek/Latin hybrids
> >>like "television".
> >>
> >
> > Or like Australopithecus Africanus, which raised more than a few eyebrows
> when
> > it was first coined.
>
> Indeed - yet there is only one letter in Australopithecus that makes it
> 'ill-formed' - sigh!
>
> Latin readily borrowed from Greek, and the ending -us as well as the
> spelling with |c| suggests a Latinized _pithecus_ rather than Greek
> _pithe:kos_. What is more _pithecus_ is actually attested in late
> Classical Latin; it is found in a 3rd CE collection of abbreviations
> ascribed to Cicero's freedman, Tiro, who was a great user of shorthand.
>
> _australis_ "southern" is a perfectly good Latin adjective. But if this
> were a properly formed Latin compound, it would be 'Australipithecus'
> "southern ape".
>
> Sigh.
Even more annoyingly, 'Africanus' would be a well-formed specific name if one
dropped the capital letter. :p

                                                Andreas