Talk:Themeda triandra
Latest comment: 4 years ago by Peter coxhead in topic perennial? number of species?
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Ancient Greek
editThe word for man in ancient greek is ανηρ - lit. anēr - andros is the genitve and stem that gives rise to verious compound words, so technically Wimpus is correct. I have an Ancient Greek lexicon - can't get the page numbers right now as it is packed up in a box for the moment. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:11, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- 1) Doesn't explain why you removed a RS reference that disagrees with you.
- 2) Unless the Lexicon actually contains the words "Themeda triandra", then it is clearly WP:SYNTH. You have one source that explains the correct usage of "Andros" in Ancient Greek, and a second source says that the modern, binomial, Latin "triandra" derives from the root "Andros", and you want to combine them want to state something about the derivation of the epithet that is never mentioned in the first source. Textbook synthesis. If the lexicon doesn't use the phrase "Themeda triandra" and explain the derivation, then you can't make that connection.
- 3) We are talking here about botanical names (which are always Latin grammar), derived from a Greek root. It's arguable how useful a Greek Lexicon would even be,
- 4) Botanical names stuff up the gender, parsing etc of the Latin (and presumably the Greek) all the time: look up the history of Brachychiton populnea/polpulneus or Senna nemophila some time. That doesn't make the names or the derivations wrong. Even if you are correct about what the root should have been in Ancient Greek (and I don't doubt you for a moment), that doesn't mean that is the actual derivation of the Latin epithet. Unless you specifically know from a reliable source that the root wasn't corrupted due to a misunderstanding of Greek or some other error in this instance, it doesn't matter what it grammatically ought to have been derived from. All that matters is what the author actually derived it from. If the author was wrong, and you have a RS to that effect, then that should be included. But since we have multiple reliable sources saying it derives form "andros", that can't be removed.Mark Marathon (talk) 02:50, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- Have you even noticed that the second reference (ref 9, see here) refers to an earlier version of Wikipedia: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Themeda_triandra&oldid=860656656 Rights holder: Wikipedia authors and editors] ... The other reference is also not the primary source for the name. It might be of interest to know what the original authors might have thought while coining the name, an incorrect etymological derivation from a non-primary source is hardly of any interest. Before you made a reference to this Wiki-clone, there was a reference to Brown (1956). The Composition of Scientific Words., a reference you have checked yourself. On p. page 509 (1956) you can read: Gr. aner, andros, m. man, male. We see two forms, while we see on the same page: Gr. anthropos, m. man only one form. Brown explains this on p. 5: The genitives of nouns are given only when they help to clarify the spelling of the root-stem or combining base. For this reason the genitives in -ae of Latin first and in -i of second declension nouns, and those in -ou of Greek nouns, are omitted. So the second form is the genitive case. The translation man, male is of course a translation of the nominative case aner. You can also check a Greek dictionary for ἀνήρ. This is so obvious to anyone with a little understanding of Greek grammar. But there are other sources here, here that actually gives aner as Greek form for triandra in Themeda triandra. I have checked a few other entries for ref 8, but it is riddled with errors. Maybe we have to acknowledge that these kind of webpages, that you have used can not be trusted regarding etymological information. Wimpus (talk) 06:42, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- I think the last sentence in the previous (“Maybe we have to acknowledge…”) is correct. It seems to me that when giving the etymology of a plant name in Wikipedia, we have to decide whether to rely on Greek language textbooks, or the admittedly often imperfect use of Latin or Greek by a taxonomist. Do we say ‘’andros’’ = “male” because that’s what the describing botanist wrote, or ‘’aner’’ = “male” because that’s what is in a specialist dictionary or lexicon? My preference would be the former, including because it is easier for a non-expert to see the connection between the Latin or Greek word and the plant name, and because a Wikipedia editor does not have to be a language expert when writing a plant page. Whatever we decide, I don’t think any editor should remove a valid reference for the reason that they do not agree with it, as was done here. Gderrin (talk) 07:19, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- The sources that are currently used are non-primary sources. So, there is not any reference to the describing botanist in the sense of the botanist that coined the name. In that case, it would make sense that describing botanist thought that andros meant male (and add that in classical Greek the proper word for male is ἀνήρ with possibly the genitive case and merely as second case, but not as only case). As many sources are quite inconsistent, some basic knowledge of Greek grammar is a condicio sine qua non. You have just added an accusative case andra (ἄνδρα) by referring to the botanists at CANBR. So, currently Wikipedia gives aner, andros and andra as Greek word for male. Quite confusing and of no benefit to the reader. Wimpus (talk) 07:34, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- And please notice, that I have provided here two botanical sources that actually write aner in explaning triandra (here, here). So, it seems that you create some dichotomy between the Greek of botanist and real Greek, but these sources show that in some case there are botanists that do adhere to the real Greek forms and that other botanists are merely ignorant. Not all botanists are created equal considering providing etymological information. Wimpus (talk) 07:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- The sources that are currently used are non-primary sources. So, there is not any reference to the describing botanist in the sense of the botanist that coined the name. In that case, it would make sense that describing botanist thought that andros meant male (and add that in classical Greek the proper word for male is ἀνήρ with possibly the genitive case and merely as second case, but not as only case). As many sources are quite inconsistent, some basic knowledge of Greek grammar is a condicio sine qua non. You have just added an accusative case andra (ἄνδρα) by referring to the botanists at CANBR. So, currently Wikipedia gives aner, andros and andra as Greek word for male. Quite confusing and of no benefit to the reader. Wimpus (talk) 07:34, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- I think the last sentence in the previous (“Maybe we have to acknowledge…”) is correct. It seems to me that when giving the etymology of a plant name in Wikipedia, we have to decide whether to rely on Greek language textbooks, or the admittedly often imperfect use of Latin or Greek by a taxonomist. Do we say ‘’andros’’ = “male” because that’s what the describing botanist wrote, or ‘’aner’’ = “male” because that’s what is in a specialist dictionary or lexicon? My preference would be the former, including because it is easier for a non-expert to see the connection between the Latin or Greek word and the plant name, and because a Wikipedia editor does not have to be a language expert when writing a plant page. Whatever we decide, I don’t think any editor should remove a valid reference for the reason that they do not agree with it, as was done here. Gderrin (talk) 07:19, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- Have you even noticed that the second reference (ref 9, see here) refers to an earlier version of Wikipedia: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Themeda_triandra&oldid=860656656 Rights holder: Wikipedia authors and editors] ... The other reference is also not the primary source for the name. It might be of interest to know what the original authors might have thought while coining the name, an incorrect etymological derivation from a non-primary source is hardly of any interest. Before you made a reference to this Wiki-clone, there was a reference to Brown (1956). The Composition of Scientific Words., a reference you have checked yourself. On p. page 509 (1956) you can read: Gr. aner, andros, m. man, male. We see two forms, while we see on the same page: Gr. anthropos, m. man only one form. Brown explains this on p. 5: The genitives of nouns are given only when they help to clarify the spelling of the root-stem or combining base. For this reason the genitives in -ae of Latin first and in -i of second declension nouns, and those in -ou of Greek nouns, are omitted. So the second form is the genitive case. The translation man, male is of course a translation of the nominative case aner. You can also check a Greek dictionary for ἀνήρ. This is so obvious to anyone with a little understanding of Greek grammar. But there are other sources here, here that actually gives aner as Greek form for triandra in Themeda triandra. I have checked a few other entries for ref 8, but it is riddled with errors. Maybe we have to acknowledge that these kind of webpages, that you have used can not be trusted regarding etymological information. Wimpus (talk) 06:42, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
perennial? number of species?
editIs Kangaroo Grass annual, biennial or perennial ?
How many species of Kangaroo Grass are there? Wimbledon32 (talk) 23:33, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
- The very first sentence says that it's a perennial. The article is about a single species, Themeda triandra. There may, of course, be other species known as "kangaroo grass", but they aren't what this article is about. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)