Re: Self-Use of Ethnic Insults (was: Re: Ebonic Christmas )

At 22:58 -0600 16.1.2000, Herman Miller wrote:
>On Sat, 16 Jan 0100 01:40:16 -0500, John Cowan <cowan@...>
>wrote:
>
>>Raymond Brown scripsit:
>>
>>> As you well know, 'swede' has a very positive meaning
>>
>>I *think* it was on another mailing list that someone asked
>>what the meaning of "L." after the scientific names of certain
>>plants was.  I explained that this meant the name had been
>>assigned by "that crafty old Swede (but no turnip), Carolus
>>Linnaeus himself."
>>
>>(In the case of more recent names, the name of the namer
>>appears instead.  Zoologists do not appear to use this convention.)
>
>I've seen "L." in a book on butterflies. More frequently, "Linnaeus" is
>written out like any other name.
FYI he didn't even call himself Linnaeus for most of his life!  His father
came from a place called Linde, and was therefore called Linder when
enrolled at university, which he then changed to Linnaeus when becoming
clergy.  The son inherited the name in this form, but became knighted as
von_Linné, which was Latinized as a_Linné.  This might be part of the
reason why his name is customarily abbreviated.  I've often wondered why
English sticks to "Linnaeus", while his countrymen say "Linné", but the
most probable reason is that he was still styled _Carolus Linnaeus_ on the
title page of _Systema Naturalis_!

(BTW there is a big street in this city called Linnégatan.  It used to be
flanked with plantations and trees -- linden of course! -- but the powers
that be decided to remove the plantations and pave the ground right up to
the stems of the poor trees.  Some way to treat a Via Linnaei! :-[)



/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto: bpj@...> <mailto: melroch@...>
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