Saturday, January 23, 2010

What’s in a name ?

I was reading up on botanical taxonomy (an academic, if not snobby, way of saying the naming of plants) and, of course, spent a bit of time researching the life of Carolus Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist who was responsible for developing the system for naming plants.

Here’s a picture of Linnaeus, copied from the Wikipedia writeup:



OK, so apart from the obvious question of whether he actually went to bed with hair curlers to get this look when he posed for his portrait the next morning, how come the signature in the top right of the painting is Linne, instead of Linnaeus?

Well, it’s a bit of irony, I think, that for someone who became such a fusspot about the accurate naming of plants, he had trouble deciding what his own name should be.

From what I can gather, he was born Carl Linnaeus.  His father had been the first in the family to adopt the surname ‘Linnaeus’, because of his fondness for the Linden tree (one I share with him, by the way). Prior to that the Swedes had been using the ‘patronymic’ system of surnames.

When Linnaeus attended the University of Lund he was enrolled as Carolus Linnaeus, presumably because of the preoccupation with giving everything and everyone a latinized name – something Linnaeus himself practiced diligently with his system of plant taxonomy.

For much of his published work, he used the name Carolus Linnaeus, or the genitive version Caroli Linnaei.  In 1757 the Swedish king granted Linnaeus nobility, as a reward for his remarkable work. After this, Linnaeus adopted the surname ‘von Linne’ – frequently using a shortened version when signing his works, ‘Carl Linne’.  I’m guessing he got tired of all the latin – an experience I can relate to when I took latin in high school.

So, despite the apparent dithering on his own identity, Linnaeus went down in history as a genius (which we know he was) for creating a system of naming all plants with scientific precision.

11 comments:

  1. Thank goodness he did, and not snobby at all! Common names are simply too confusing for some plants...besides, it gives me a chance to practice my Latin too!

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  2. He has gentle eyes in this portrait, maybe, just maybe he had a sense of humor. And thankfully the intelligence to create a system of such accuracy that we still use it to this day.

    Jen

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  3. I love Linnaeus, von Linne, or however he wants to call himself. I embrace botanical nomenclature even when I get exasperated with taxonomists reclassifying plants into new genera. I always gently encourage others to not fear the botanical names, as no pronunciation-snobs are allowed to criticize how people say the names--not around me, anyway.

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  4. Thanks for clarifying this... I always thought Linnaeus was the latinized form of his birthname Carl von Linné, but I checked your story, and it really was the other way round.
    If you don't mind, I will tell this story on my (Dutch) blog this week, of course mentioning (and linking to) yours'. (I was desperate for inspiration for my next week's posts... and here I find some!)

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  5. I so agree with Jodi's comment on using the correct Latin names for plants. In this way we can communicate accurately across countries and continents. But it is also true that there should be no snobbery attached to different pronounciations since that is unkind and unhelpful.

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  6. I doubt that he slept with rollers in his hair. One might presume that,like most nobility,he wore a gray powdered wig.

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  7. Ya, I know. But the 'do' reminded me of my old aunt who wanted curls just like that, and went to bed with hair rollers - how she slept, I often wondered as a kid, and still don't know, actually.

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  8. I love having the latin names available. When I lived in a different country and spoke in another language, it was a great relief to be able to resort to latin names and be immediately understood by other gardeners. It allowed me to make friends and share info without relearning *all* of the common names first. :)

    Wonderful post! I had no idea Linne couldn't decide on his own name. Very amusing.

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  9. Its Botanical Latin for me. I was weaned on it and find it less confusing that the miriad of common names that exist for so many plants. This is the topic of the February Teza and Friends Garden Forum, so it shall be interesting to see what my cohorts think. Please stop by on the 7th for a continuation of this most interesting topic.

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  10. oh linne, linne, linne, what a gift you gave to mankind...but to all your closest friends you'll always be just linne :)

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  11. Hank, Thank you for a very funny and educating post! It gets a LOL!

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