Re: AIS: HIST: REF: Early Checklists

In a message dated 8/1/2007 3:54:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
rpries@sbcglobal.net writes:

. Of  course we compound this by then abbreviating the jargon; ergo  
standards,
falls, 


Nah. We are not responsible for that one. 
 
I've documented an instance of that particular  Iris terminology in the 
seventeenth century. An English author  remarked upon the use of just those terms 
by a French nurseryman.
 
The stuff that made me crazy in the beginning was things like how Standard  
Dwarf Bearded Irises were not classed as Dwarf Irises, and how AIS had the  
unvarnished effrontery in TWOI to apply its bearded cultivar size  
classifications to the bearded Iris species. 
 
And of course, all that fundamentally unsatisfying balderdash in the  
literature, meaning Mathew and the whole lot of the wise men, about the  germanica 
complex, so called. I figured if someone as botanically dumb as I ---I  was 
trained as an art historian, you understand---could recognize  palpable nonsense 
on the hoof, then it was likely to be pretty  egregious nonsense. 
 
But all that said, I think any specialized field, including a floral  
society, must have a specialized vocabulary, possibly even a large one, to  meet the 
group's innate need for precise communication, and I think that is  entirely 
okay.
 
I really don't think people get scared off things they are interested  in by 
new words or concepts. I think they lap them up. 
 
Anner Whitehead
Richmond VA USA 
 



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