Today, I was reading one more example of why publishers should lift their heads
out of the style books and adopt the principle that formal English species
names should be capitalized. The following was in today's Seattle PI travel
insert, "Getaways," describing birds sighted at Dungeness. While I am very
familiar with these birds, I still found myself re-reading to be sure I
understood what the author was talking about. Imagine the confusion for
non-birders:

"Long-necked black cormorants and red-footed white pigeon guillemots cruised
along looking for a meal."

Of course, the cormorants deserve no capitalization at all because there is no
such bird as a Black Cormorant, or a Long-necked Black Cormorant, for that
matter. But the reader can't make a certain judgement because of the convention
of no caps in any case. I will tell you, though, I went to my field guide
because I couldn't be absolutely sure. (There is a Little Black Cormorant - non
N.A.)

As for the "red-footed white pigeon guillemots," well, this morsel thrown out
to the public is really ripe. We have four possibilities of formal bird names,
plus the possibility that no real bird name exists in the phrase. We know its
really a Pigeon Guillemot, don't we? Let me suggest that if I don't finish this
paragraph, many of you will sneak a peek in your field guides just to be sure.
No, there is no White Pigeon Guillemot, and no Red-footed White Pigeon
Guillemot. (There's a Black Guillemot, though, which is enough reason for us to
go looking for a White Guillemot.) Incidentally, since she says she made this
trip earlier this month, she reveals that the guillemots are done breeding and
have molted already -- in breeding season, those birds are black guillemots -
uh, er, just black guillemots, not black guillemots - well, what I really mean
is.....

In another paragraph, the article talks about "double-crested cormorants" and
"pelagic cormorants." Ditto for the inexperienced reader -- "double-crested"
and "pelagic" could both be used simply as adjectives.

The convention of no caps does protect the writer from the burdensome
requirement to be correct -- if she screws up a capitalized species name, she
can be criticized; but if she doesn't capitalize, she can just claim reasonable
use of adjectives.

Of course, the classic, admittedly terribly strained, example of the problem is
as follows:

"I saw a little gull that looked very much like a little gull. However it was
bigger than most little gulls, so I couldn't tell if the little gull was a
little gull or something else. The next time I see a little gull, I'm going to
try to compare its size with all the other little gulls to determine if it's a
little gull or just a little gull."

Birder's World and Birding magazines use capitals for formal English species
names, and the improved clarity more than justifies the offense of defying the
style books. BirdWatcher's Digest, however, rigidly edits all submitted
material to remove the offending caps, in spite of complaints. In fact, a year
or so ago, they had an entire article on little gulls which was an
undecipherable abomination because of blind adherence to the rule. By golly,
they'll never be criticized by Hodges Harbrace!

Heck, field guides capitalize, including such dense tomes as Sibley and Monroe.
Even WOS News capitalizes <G> And Dennis Paulson certainly doesn't invite
speculation about short-billed curlews by describing long-billed curlews,
although he does use ~all~ caps in comparative contexts in his book, which is a
helpful aid to get right to the similar species you are looking for.

When I once presented the field guide evidence to an editor (who will remain
un-named), he replied, "WELL! They have to capitalize - for clarity." He didn't
get it when I said, "I rest my case." - he has clearly lost sight of his
responsibilities to his readers, and possibly no longer understands the very
reason for the existence of any publication.

I suppose we should start with the New York Times. If we could get their style
book changed....

Jerry


E-mail from: Jerry Blinn, 22-Aug-1996