[Sca-cooks] names for newly discovered plants
Stefan li Rous
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Sun Nov 11 13:04:59 PST 2007
Bear commented:
<<< Relating a New World squash to Turkey would be consistent with the
nomenclature relating maize to Turkey and capsicum peppers to India. >>>
Okay, I remember the maize (Indian corn) and Turkey, which is more
obvious, but what was the phrasing or whatever that related capsicum
peppers to India? Just the "pepper" portion of the name? Was it
thought that all of the peppers, black, white, long came from India?
Or was "India" simply being used as a synonym for that area to the East?
We sometimes laugh at this use of "India" this and that, including
the use of the name for the inhabitants of the Americas, but what
would a better alternative have been for them? If you had come across
the capsicum pepper(s), what would *you* have called them>?
Who knows, we may be faced with this again. Say in 500 years we are
landing on the planets of another star system and come across native
vegetation there. How would we name it, except in terms or variations
of terms that we already know? Perhaps if it was rather hazardous or
seemed to be particularly useless, we might name it after a disliked
politician, but that is still naming it after something we know.
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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