Re: [wolfrunners] Languages & SF/F (fwd)

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Barry Garcia wrote:

> CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> >Also, the advice I've heard given for made-up names is: if it fulfills
> >the same ecological/cultural function as Earth creature X, for pity's
> >sake *call* it that.
>
> Don't cultures on earth that encounter new ecosystems do the same thing? I
> recall hearing that the reason a native plant called "manzanita"
> (Arctostaphylos) was named that, was because the berries reminded the
> Spanish of small apples. There's also a pronghorn antelope that isnt
> really an antelope, but resembles one.
Yes.  A biology/English major friend of mine complained when I told him
"mu" (Chinese white radish) was called, well, white radish; he's
convinced it's not really related to the "real" radish.  I countered,
"Well, if you say 'mu' (Korean) to someone who doesn't know what a Korean
calls it, they're not going to know what you mean, and at least 'white
radish' is descriptive--the rooty part does look radishy, except it's
white and much, much bigger."

Seems to me a lot of plants in English have common names that don't have
anything to do with their biological genus/species classifications anyway.

YHL