User talk:Leo Breman

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Welcome!

Hello, Leo Breman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! First Light (talk) 02:05, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing Protea articles

90 spp.; 79 spp. with articles; 62 spp. edited; 28 spp. done; 14 spp. still need cookin'

Burnt

Well done:

Protea aristata
Protea nana

Done: -21spp.

Reasonably done: -10spp.

Rare, undercooked: -12spp.

Bloody: -11spp.

Raw -3spp.

Other articles not yet looked at -14spp.

Leo Breman (talk) 18:57, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments on Protea glabra (made here since they may apply generally across the recent batch of transwiked articles).

"in English known as" is redundant in context
the lede is ambiguous, is it the genus or the species that is endemic to South Africa? Referring to the genus article, it's the species. Sticking a comma after "genus" would help, but splitting the sentence is probably clearer.
"genus Protea is the usual usage, rather than Protea genus.
are ZA "tree national numbers" notable, especially in an international encyclopedia?
should conservation status be added to the taxobox? (I think I've seen this in taxoboxes elsehwere.) (From context I'm guessing that this one is LC - least concern - but I could be wrong. A source would be needed. update: ref 2 confirms) Lavateraguy (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya, much thanks for constructive comments! Ehm, there are another 40 or so to go, so I'm mostly just vetting facts, checking grammar, putting references in the right place. In reply:

- Yeah, fair enough, but I was thinking the phrase "commonly known as" may not really be accurate regarding official names in a multilingual country. Protea nitida is likely most commonly known by the Afrikaans name waboom. Another example, the official names of many plants were changed with the fall of Apartheid, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are in common use. I'll come up with alternative prose.
- Good one. On it.
- Right, leftover wording from original text. I'll change it.
- Mwa, I personally think it's useless info, but if articles on trees of which some are grown in Britain includes things like the record tallest in Britain, I don't see why it can't be added. Perhaps it might be useful to South African readers? I'll do whatever the consensus is. Maybe put this one through general discussion?
- I would most certainly agree, but I wasn't planning on doing the taxoboxes anyway and just c&ped the taxobox Plantdrew added to the first Protea species on the list. It's slightly complicated because the SANBI assessments are not the same as the IUCN red list assessments. I'll ask Elmidae about doing this.

Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 20:23, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The taxobox parameters can take other statuses and systems, but only support some systems with links, graphics and categories. Some regional conservation statuses (Canada, Queensland, Western Australia, NZ) are supported (see {{Taxobox/species}}) so support for SANBI could be added. I think there is a sort of consensus that regional redlist conservation statuses should only be used on endemic species so the SANBI regionally extinct status wouldn't be used. As the SANBI statuses differ from the IUCN it wouldn't have graphics (unless someone creates a set). I've added a manual conservation status to Protea glabra as an example. — Jts1882 | talk 09:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Jts1882. I remember you helped me with the Brazilian conservation status system. SANBI has managed to assess most of the flora of South Africa, and I think they are using the IUCN system... Uh, oh, scratch that, I guess not exactly. I'll add your template to the articles I've completed. Leo Breman (talk) 13:11, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they use a modified IUCN system, unlike CNCFlora, so we can't use the IUCN graphics. South Africa has a number of endemics so if you think it will be used reasonably often I can add it to the template options. Otherwise there is the manual approach I used in the example, which is fine if its only going to be a handful of cases. Let me know if you want it as an option so the linking is handled and categories checked. — Jts1882 | talk 13:29, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I used it on Protea parvula, I made one small change to your reference: |year --> |date, as the assessments were made at different dates between 2003 to 2019, as far as I can tell. Manual is fine I guess, only 2 or 3 changes needed after c&p. Anyway, cool, thanks for jumping on this! Leo Breman (talk) 13:43, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled across this rather late, but I usually introduce English vernacular names as follows: "Fooia grandifolia, the bigleaf fooia or red fooia, is a....". I don't restrict the lead to include a single vernacular name if there are several that are roughly equally used, but I wouldn't go past 3 in most cases. A name with a possessive sounds a little strange to me if phrased as "the Nuttall's fooia"; in that case I replace "the" with "or" (or if there are multiple vernacular names, make sure the possessive one isn't listed first).

There was a little bit of discussion around this at User_talk:AddWittyNameHere/Archive_4#The_"the"_in_species_names_with_possessives

I think "commonly known as" is indeed a very poor phrase and I actively edit to eliminate it when I encounter it. Boa constrictor and Aloe vera are most commonly known to the general public by their scientific names, not any vernacular name.

Afrikaans names might be appropriate in the lead if they are widely used in generalist English language sources (newspapers, etc.). There are various mammals that are certainly best known in English by names of Afrikaans origin (gemsbok, springbok). On the other hand, in so far as there is a multi-lingual system of official vernacular names for South African plants, presenting just the English one in the lead is also reasonable. Plantdrew (talk) 02:06, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I should mention I am perfectly happy with ", also known as,..." (commas on both sides) to introduce vernacular names. Plantdrew (talk) 02:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there!

Problem with "commonly" is we're making a value judgement not really supported by most sources. Many common names are made up and just circulate online from one database to the next, with no one actually using them in everyday speech. Sometimes a name is garnered from very local usage, like an uncommon accidental in south Florida or a name in the Hawaiian language, and purely due to GRIN being up since the 1990s this name has gained currency across the entire world... I'm thinking of some Canavalia species.

Useful with the formation ", also known as ..., ..." is that I can easily add more common names as I come across them. I prefer to add cites until the most common common name floats to the surface. Sometimes you notice odd things, like the North American Torreya taxifolia I was working on earlier this year: "stinking cedar" was by far the most common name for centuries, with numerous attestations that that is indeed the name local Americans normally used for the plant, but the IUCN chose a more PR name to title their webpage on it, and, probably due to internet and copypasta, in the last two decades they seem to have influenced at least online representations of what the tree should be (if not is) called.

To me using a possessive doesn't sound strange to my ear in English... I don't care about this, I will acquiesce with what the community thinks is proper.

Regarding non-English common names, I simply do not agree with many people here on Wikipedia. If a species occurs in an area in which Afrikaans is the most predominant language, and I happen to be there and want to find some, knowing the local name is eminently useful. Perhaps someone is Afrikaans or Zulu and wants to know the name in their local language, or conversely wants to know the Latin name of the tree in mom's garden. English is an international language now, more people speak it as a second language than a first. There is also often great local colour in the etymology of a name. These names just often ended up in the lede when I write because the info is as yet too slim to separate in a special section, as I did for Protea nana.

I believe most botanists, other biologists, and the more adventurous gardeners, likely commonly use the Latin names. Maybe school kids wring an essay, hikers (instagram), nurseries (commerce), or other more promotional stuff like University IT PR people, or marketers writing copy for nature parks, are a typical demographic which prefers to c&p an English common name. None of these people are good sources. I'd much more respect what my granny had to say about Sranan-tonga names, than some random instagram nature lover blogger: you know, actual local knowledge of names in actual regular use. Exceptions for actual linguists.

I'm against the concept of standardised common names (silly bird people: trying to mould a vernacular over the ever-changing vicissitudes of taxonomists is just a pointless exercise/waste of education, time and money -this is why we have Latin names in the first place, let linguists do this), but in the case of South Africa there is indeed a multi-lingual system of officially mandated vernacular names for plants; all common names are maintained in a database by the University of Witwatersrand, I believe. Regarding protea, I notice that where all English language texts from South Africa from the 1990s or earlier use the common name "protea" in the names, since the 2000s a calque of the Afrikaans is being promoted instead, "sugarbush", at least in South Africa. The countries to the north aren't following this. I found some interesting info on why it is called so in Afrikaans from an old Afrikaans dictionary -the inflorescences of certain species were once boiled down to make a syrup -used to make a refreshing drink, I'll write it up on the genus page one of these days.

Pet peeve! Sorry! Leo Breman (talk) 11:16, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, a sensible peeve! The problem for me with "commonly known as" is the ambiguity over the meaning of "common" in this context. In the English Wikipedia, it has at least four different meanings:

'often known as'
'usually known by non-specialists as'
'has the vernacular name'
the specialized meaning of WP:COMMONNAME, which is none of the above, although often confused with them: 'most frequently called in independent, reliable English-language sources'

I prefer either Plantdrew's "also known as" or just "known as", but always with a source. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, citation is essential. Take this: cinnamon bush at Protea burchellii... unsupported by all the references I've checked so far (1 to go), but it's been in there from the start. Possibly an extremely wonky machine translation from Afrikaans blinksuikerbos, but I don't really see how a machine turned 'shiny sugar' into 'cinnamon'? Cinnamon is 'kaneel', that word is no where in the Afrikaans Wikipedia text. It could be that some anonymous dude who lives in India just made it up on the spot... That could very well be possible...

Look, the phrase "commonly known as ..." can also be accurate in many cases, and where in some cases it can be sourced, that's great. It seems to me things like common names can easily be researched empirically. This is basically an essential facet of writing a dictionary, that's what linguists are for, you can go deep here. But for most organisms in the world such accuracy is unavailable/unattainable, and most organisms don't occur where English is the main language.

If people want to invent new English names for species and it gets published, I suppose we must report it, but this verges on pointless. The stuff about competing recommended names in English for rare toads in Venezuela is just... Herpetologists forming committees, writing books, all for made-up names that no one actually uses, except to serve as what, a handle in writing media reports? Something for internet? And these names are getting ridiculously long: 'Venezuelan orange-backed basking-toad' -These people are turning their backs on Linnaeus and Bauhin and returning to the previous system.

You actually see a similar problem in accuracy in the reporting of names in other languages. Sometimes a name was horribly transcribed by the collector 100 years ago from a now extinct dialect and no one actually calls it that, but it keeps on getting recycled. I even saw that with the Spanish name of a common garden palm. Or the wrong spelling keeps on getting recycled in English works. GRIN really annoyingly usually removes accents and the like, actually a lot of American websites do that. Spanish names is Latin America can be incredibly diverse, a name from Mexico may be unheard of in Argentina. For all I know, this is likely the same in languages such as Navaho, Quechua or Arawak. Even in the small Netherlands there are local differences, same in British English. Or here's one, at CalFlora, many of the Slovenian names are Croatian (I noticed over 5 years ago, checked with a Croatian, ha!); they got confused: their photographer was Croatian taking pictures in Slovenia. So to conclude, nice to report these things, but some care, good sourcing and citation is needed.

Also, the term 'vernacular name' is indeed more precise than 'common name', I should try to use it more. Leo Breman (talk) 17:20, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving this link here so I can find it easier

User:Abductive/missing_genera_from_POWO

More sources

I'm tackling more genus names now, and need more sources. plantillustrations.org (under the epithets tab) is very helpful ... but I can't tell that it's reliable. Do you happen to know where it's pulling etymological data from? - Dank (push to talk) 15:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Their etymology references are here. A few of those books are online, but it's mostly Stearn. Best just use the construction "is thought to be" as opposed to "is", when you not referencing the original publication. Leo Breman (talk) 18:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also try Plantzafrica for etymologies of African plants. Again, I've detected mistakes, so use with qualifier. There's a German book as well, it's been referenced everywhere on German wikipedia, you could probably lift those cites. Leo Breman (talk) 18:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense. I've already ordered two books in German (I can read it well enough for this work) that Quattrocchi makes a lot of use of, one by Boerner and one by Genaust ... are you thinking of one of those authors? - Dank (push to talk) 18:15, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, Genaust. Another idea: the Flora USSR generally has etymologies for genera and species, you can find an Israeli translation into English at Biodiversity Heritage Library. Leo Breman (talk) 18:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collections isn't showing me anything for "USSR" or "Russia" ... do you have a link or keyword? - Dank (push to talk) 16:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for December 18

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Project

Hello! I'm wondering if there are any taxa that you are working on at the moment. I could help (:

NinjaWeeb (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 01:02, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@NinjaWeeb: Howdy, it seems Leo Breman hasn't been around for awhile, at least a year. (Nicest guy and I'm hoping he's doing well). He did have this User:Abductive/missing_genera_from_POWO on this page, as something he may have been working on. Cheers! --The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 15:37, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent!

It's nice to come across an editor (of Complex Systems Biology in this case) who is an impatient of bullshit as I am. Athel cb (talk) 09:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Convolvulus arvensis and Calystegia sepium

Hi LB, an IP editor is claiming to be you (User talk:86.83.56.115#Convolvulus arvensis and Calystegia sepium). Could you say if that's true or not? Thanks. Invasive Spices (talk) 18:47, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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