I too am a scientist and a bander and a database keeper, and I too prefer
to use full English names in conversation (and in e-mails). They're much
more user-friendly to the general public and often have an enjoyable
historical or romantic tang to them....I guess I'm just sentimental. I
still remember how much it bugged me and my fellow scientist when we'd
been studying Lapland longspurs for two years and a bunch of birders
arrived at our field site and started calling them "lalo's". It seemed so
presumptuous! So disrespectful! Humph! My fellow scientist (Tom Hahn)
composed a poem that went something like:

[tweedoo and chik = alarm calls of Lapland longspurs]

While walking 'cross the tundra, I saw up in the sky
A little black-faced birdie who was singing on the fly.
I said "Hay-lo, you lay-lo!" as he flew overhead
But he tweedoo'd and chik'd at me, and circled round and said:

"I don't call you HOSA, or say 'how's it hanging', dude?'
Because I do not know you yet,and so it would be rude.
Please don't call me lay-lo, for that is not my name.
I am a Lapland longspur; call me nothing but the same."


[we had a lot of time to come up with stupid poems, out there stomping
around on the tundra. Most of them are not printable here. Come to think
of it, the true translations of "tweedoo" and "chik" may not be printable
either...]

Kathleen