[pbs] Calochortus Question
studio pozzi taubert
studio.pozzitaubert at tiscali.it
Sat Jun 21 14:28:08 EDT 2008
Il giorno 21/giu/08, alle ore 00:00, David Ehrlich ha scritto:
> What is the correct spelling for Calochortus caeruleus/coeruleus?
> Wikipedia claims that coer… is an incorrect spelling and that it
> should be caer…. The Gerritsen & Parsons book spells it coer…, and
> makes no mention of an alternate (or incorrect) spelling. The
> Jepson Manual also uses coer…., but IPNI uses caer…. Calflora
> spells it coer…, but directs you to Calphotos where it is spelled
> caer….
the correct spelling is no doubt COERULEUS !!!!
>
> I guess this is an example of historic confusion: the ligatured
> diphthongs oe and ae look pretty much alike. When the diphthong oe
> appears in Latin, it is frequently derived from oi in a Greek word,
> e.g. coelestis from the Greek root koilos meaning concave or
> hollow. Caeruleus is a Latin word meaning (dark) blue. Coeruleus
> makes no sense – it is an evident misspelling of caeruleus. So,
> the question is: who made the first misspelling? If it was
> Kellogg, should it have been corrected, or should the misspelling
> be perpetuated? There should be some rules of Nomenclature to
> guide us here.
> David Ehrlich
the confusion is coming from far/ old times when the diphtongs
COE and CAE had the same translation in Italian ( vulgaris
latin ) and other latin languages : CE we read it " cae " ,
returning back to latin somebody wrote CAE and someone else
wrote COE ,
the Church also makes confusion with the word CAELUM ( sky ) in
REGINA CAELI we often find written REGINA COELI , not only in
Italy but you may find the mistake in Paris and
in England too ( google search: Regina Coeli Parish,
www.reginacoeli.org/ ) the jail in rome is written Regina
Coeli.... Casa circondariale di Roma Regina Coeli,
the mistake for CAERULEUS ( better to translate with grey/blu ) may
also be found in Medicine: Locus Caerulus in the brain is often
written Coeruleus,
more, in some fishes names we find Coeruleus ( google search Image
for Acanthurus coeruleus....)
I fear we cannot change this even with a great battle ( useful?)
tantum debui
Giorgio Pozzi
Tavedona (Varese)
Italy zone 7/8
studio.pozzitaubert at tiscali.it
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