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.