Formation of prokaryote names from personal names: a review of current practice and a proposal to emend Appendix 9 of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes.

The practice of naming elements from the natural world after notable individuals stretches back to ancient times. This practice of creating eponyms-terms derived from personal names-has been carried forward into prokaryotic nomenclature, where the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) sets guidelines for creating scientific names from personal names. However, these guidelines can be seen as culturally biased, disjointed and, on occasion, misguided. Here, with the goal of modernizing these recommendations to render them more user-friendly, coherent and inclusive, I review current practice in the light of precedents and key linguistic and cultural principles, while questioning the applicability of the first-name/last-name paradigm for many cultural traditions. Procedural challenges include romanization of the personal name (including handling of diacritics), creation of a short and agreeable latinized stem, assignment of the stem to a declension and addition of suffixes or compound word components to create genus names or species epithets, customizing the approach for names and stems that end in a vowel. I review the pros and cons of stem augmentation, which involves addition of an extra 'i' to the original stem. Next, I formulate a coherent workflow, which I incorporate into a Python script to enable computer-based automation of name creation. Rather than following the ICNP in limiting discussion to a few dozen mainly European names, I examine how these principles work out when applied to the tens of thousands of last names under which scientists publish in the PubMed database, focusing on edge cases where conventional approaches fail, particularly very short and very long names. Drawing on these explorations and analyses, I propose emendations to the advice currently presented in the ICNP to usher in a modern, consistent, pragmatic and globally inclusive approach to the creation of prokaryotic eponyms.

Use of connecting vowels after stems ending in the same vowel: a proposal to emend Appendix 9 of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes.

The International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) provides guidance on the formation of names from compound words. This includes recommendations on the use of connecting vowels, which are meant to make names easier to pronounce. However, deployment of a connecting vowel when the preceding word element ends in the same vowel can make a name harder to spell or say, bringing us into conflict with the recommendations that we should avoid names that are disagreeable and difficult to pronounce. Given that there are many precedents where connecting vowels are not used in this context, particularly in names formed from the term 'alkali', I hereby propose an emendation to the ICNP to drop the connecting vowel when the preceding word element ends in the same vowel.

Suppressing Synonymy with a Homonym: The Emergence of the Nomenclatural Type Concept in Nineteenth Century Natural History.

'Type' in biology is a polysemous term. In a landmark article, Paul Farber (Journal of the History of Biology 9(1): 93-119, 1976) argued that this deceptively plain term had acquired three different meanings in early nineteenth century natural history alone. 'Type' was used in relation to three distinct type concepts, each of them associated with a different set of practices. Important as Farber's analysis has been for the historiography of natural history, his account conceals an important dimension of early nineteenth century 'type talk.' Farber's taxonomy of type concepts passes over the fact that certain uses of 'type' began to take on a new meaning in this period. At the closing of the eighteenth century, terms like 'type specimen,' 'type species,' and 'type genus' were universally recognized as referring to typical, model members of their encompassing taxa. But in the course of the nineteenth century, the same terms were co-opted for a different purpose. As part of an effort to drive out nomenclatural synonymy - the confusing state of a taxon being known to different people by different names - these terms started to signify the fixed and potentially atypical name-bearing elements of taxa. A new type concept was born: the nomenclatural type. In this article, I retrace this perplexing nineteenth century shift in meaning of 'type.' I uncover the nomenclatural disorder that the new nomenclatural type concept dissolved, and expose the conceptual confusion it left in its tracks. What emerges is an account of how synonymy was suppressed through the coinage of a homonym.