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Re: Dublex (was: Washing-machine words (was: Futurese, Chinese,

From:Tim May <butsuri@...>
Date:Thursday, May 23, 2002, 19:35
Andreas Johansson writes:
 > John Cowan wrote:
 > >J Y S Czhang scripsit:
 > >
 > > >     It may help to show examples of this, And. From taxonomy and
 > >natlangs
 > > > (and, possibly, conlangs). I am keen to clear this up myself ;) Thanx in
 > > > advance...
 > >
 > >Well, the lowland or common gorilla is "Gorilla gorilla gorilla", whereas
 > >the mountain gorilla is "Gorilla gorilla beringei".  Then we have the
 > >indri,
 > >a prosimian of Madagascar, whose Linnaean name is "Indri indri".
 > >
 > >But my favorite Linnaean name belongs to the boa constrictor: "Boa
 > >constrictor".
 > >No kidding.
 >
 > I may be very dense, but what's the joke?
 >
 >                                              Andreas
 >
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It's just that it's rare for a Linnaean name to be the same as the
common name.  Also, in English, you'd tend to automatically interpret
"boa constrictor" as being modifier-head, whereas in the Latin-based
Linnaean nomenclature it's head-modifier.