Re: A Pet Peeve and Need Identification Help

**"Peter Loewer" t*@earthlink.net**

Ever since I have been a scientific illustrator, then a writer, I have lived
in a society that is hell bent on "dumbing down" and with the latest teen
movie, they purposefully misspelled dumber. I am so tired of correcting
writers about Latin names, botanical names, etc., that  it's obviously now
out of control. The adventure of plant names is one of the most fascinating
and entertaining intellectual pursuits around and I can only remember the
then editor of Horticulture magazine telling me to drop that kind of thing
as nobody's interested. I  blame the American education mill, the editors of
all these fine magazines who rather than stand up for something, give in,
and most of the so-called hort writers of today who have never even
experienced dirt under their nails. I can remember when The American
Horticulturist changed their name to The American Gardener because the first
title included something that many of their future subscribers would not
understand. And let me again remind you all of the destruction of Organic
Gardening magazine driven by greed and egoism. When I began my career, the
GWAA demanded that you be invited to join and that you had to be a writer,
and judgments were passed. But there was more money to be made by opening it
up to anybody who could write a check. Yes, I miss the old days because
writers took a bit of time to check their material, check facts, and yes,
get the scientific names correct. Best, Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: <ApisMNO@aol.com>
To: <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: [GWL] A Pet Peeve and Need Identification Help


> Here's another rant about "scientific" names.  It often seems to me that
> American society wants to denigrate science and the scientific method for
> gathering knowledge.  I long ago stopped noticing when people misused
words relating
> to the biological and physical sciences.  I am also, now, convinced that
those
> people are beyond help from me.  If a twenty something female doesn't know
the
> history of science sufficiently well to know about Mr. Jenner and cowpox,
> then I can only hope that the agent for smallpox is not released anywhere
in the
> United States.
>
> There are occasional articles in Natural History and similar magazines and
> journals by people like my late heroes Isaac Asimov and Stephen Jay Gould
that
> try to explain that science is not about certainty, but the search to
> understand.  Karl Linne saw the need to organize the things he wanted to
understand.
> We are beginning to reorganize some of his patterns, but it is still about
> searching and testing.  I had little exposure to different cultures until
35 years
> ago.  I knew a little bit of scientific Latin, but had zero awareness of
how
> many common names could be hung over the same plant and nobody wants to
change
> their practices.
>
> If only Natural History would use binomials in the short articles about
> special spots around the United States it would help to get more people
accustomed
> to those names.
>
> Barbara Emeneau
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