Talk:Nomen illegitimum

No such term

It turns out that there is no such term as "Nomen illegitimum" in the botanical Code. "Nom. illeg." has been used quite a bit in the literature, so it should be explained somehow. Probably, this page needs to be moved to "Illegitimate name (botany)", or a similar name. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Article 52.1 starts "A name, unless conserved (Art. 14) or sanctioned (Art. 15), is illegitimate and is to be rejected if it was nomenclaturally superfluous when published ..." I'm told by a nomenclatural specialist, that this use of the word "rejected" should not be taken to mean than an illegitimate name is one type of rejected name (he says it is historical wording). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:18, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

In case someone else feels competent to work on this, perhaps it would be useful to compare it in some way to "Nomen novum" which doesn't translate to "New name" but to "Replacement name". Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:20, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

True. What happens is that "illegitimate name" is the term, but the obsolete "nomen" is used as the abbreviation by analogy with the "nom. cons." and "nom. rej."... Circéus (talk) 21:12, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the page to Illegitimate name, which hopefully fixes the principal problem. Copying this talk page as well. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted the move; when moving a page, you should use the [move] link at the top of the page. This keep the page history and all prior contributions with the article, a condition we publish under with the publishing license. See Help:Move for more. Do not simply copy and paste content to a new page or redirect as this separates prior contributions from its content. Other than that, I have no opinion on the merits of the move. Rkitko ^(talk) 22:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Although it's true that the exact term "nomen illegitimum" is not in the Code, the phrase "nom. illeg." is widely used – in lists of names I think I've never seen the English "illegitimate name". A Google search gave me 243,000 hits for "nom. illeg." and only 34,700 for "illegitimate name". So although it may not be the official term, I think it's clearly the best title for the article as per WP:CRITERIA, in particular recognizability. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

However, I now realize that we are inconsistent, because the Code does use nomen conservandum, but the article is at conserved name. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you Peter, about consistency. The redirects will get them here either way, and the article will explain either way, but people who really need to look up this term would probably be better helped by having these terms in English, especially when there is no compelling reason to put them in Latin (Code only gives them in English). If we were comparing Google hits, then another way to look at it might be that if an author prefers the long spelling in Latin OR in English as the Code uses... either way he is still much more likely to abbreviate, so naturally abbreviations will have more hits, and so we shouldn't make the leap that if one abbreviation is more common then the full version in Latin must also be more common. In fact it's really not. If we compare both full versions, "illegitimate name" to "nomen illegitimum", apples to apples; they come out out about the same amount of Google hits; but if we do just a Google Scholar search it is 5:1 in favor of "illegitimate name". I don't think Google matters much though, since these are not common-language phrases that are controlled by common use and won't morph over time by common use. Rather, by agreement of nearly all who use them, they are controlled and restricted by one accepted authority. If the ICN wants to change the definition of illegitimate name, then we all agree to follow; so it just doesn't make as much sense to worry about common usage in this kind of controlled case, IMHO. I would support a move to Illegitimate name (botany). --Tom Hulse (talk) 23:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I think this can be argued either way. The facts seem clear:

• By far the most commonly occurring version of the term in any kind of literature that I have checked is the abbreviation "nom. illeg."
• Wikipedia doesn't use abbreviations as article titles (WP:AT#Article title format, 3rd bullet point), so "Nom. illeg." is ruled out.
• Hence the choice is between "Illegitimate name" or "Nomen illegitimum". (I don't see the need for a disambiguating term; Illegitimate name is at present a redirect rather than a disambiguation page, so there's no need for any addition such as "(botany)".)
• The full form "nomen illegitimum" is used to roughly the same extent as "illegitimate name" – it's hard to be precise because if you check individual results for a Google search for the phrase "illegitimate name", some are not botanical uses. "Nomen illegitimum" has the advantage of being the full form of the most commonly used expression; "illegitimate name" has the advantage of being the term used in the ICN.

I prefer "Nomen illegitimum" as the expansion of the most common occurrence. However, provided all three (illegitimate name, nom. illeg., nomen illegitimum) are in bold in the first couple of sentences and the other two exist as redirects, I don't really see that the article title matters. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I would sure like to move it, otherwise we have to remove all the references in the article, because they just don't say what our article claims. That would be too bad, I think they're the best we can get. --Tom Hulse (talk) 10:38, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The new Code should be along soon. There is also a "user's guide" on the publisher's list of forthcoming volumes that might perhaps explain this sort of thing in a way that will be helpful for wikipedia. We can wait and hope. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:53, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

@Tom: I don't accept your point about the references. The article is clear that "illegitimate name", "nomen illegitimum" and the abbreviation "nom. illeg." mean exactly the same thing (this should be referenced) so what is said in the ICN of the first is equally true for the other two. I'm not against moving the article, but I agree with Sminthopsis84 that it's a good idea to wait until the new version of the ICN is online. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Peter, I think they really aren't the same, and "illegitimate name" is the only one condoned by the code, nom. illeg. is old usage from when the code was smaller and less dogmatic, and people used Latin more freely. Even if we all agreed about that, I don't think we could explain it sufficiently clearly here without waiting for the new code to (hopefully) surmount the difficulty. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Oops, sorry Peter, you're right, especially about the first one. The main reference (the crucial one) for the Definition section does have to go though. It's just plain wrong. You could make an argument that the statements are true, but not that they are supported by the source. In fact the use of the Latin instead of English is "explained", but not supported by the sources at all in the Article. Do you recall how long the last code took to get published? Wasn't it something like two years?

If you two would like to wait for the new code to come out, I might ask why? It would seem that if we are going to accept the Code as an authority in the future, then it would also be an authority now. --Tom Hulse (talk) 15:41, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I've heard that the target date for the code is 1 year after the congress, and that the editorial committee expects to be finished in the next couple of weeks, so publication will be soon (how long the publishers will need, I haven't heard). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:13, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Legitimate superfluous names

A name can in fact be both superfluous and legitimate, if it has a basionym. See Art. 52.3 Aelwyn (talk) 22:42, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

@Aelwyn: not just a basionym in the case of the names of higher taxa. I've added material which I hope explains the issue, but it's difficult to explain both simply and correctly. See what you think. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:49, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

More generally, I suspect it would be better to have a single article covering the various kinds of botanically incorrect names. There's inevitably overlap with separate articles, and the distinction between them is lost. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:52, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Agree. There's hardly enough on the topic for separate articles, and generally these should probably all be subsumed withint botanical nomenclature. Circéus (talk) 09:56, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Your objection is effectively published, valid, legitimate, and correct. Aelwyn (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2016 (UTC)