• Question: Why do you think certain items were given a specific name? (this also includes latin names)

    Asked by 07porterj to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Names for items were given to describe the item or its particular function. As with all names, they evolve through the generations. Lots of names for items have their history in old Anglo Saxon words and have been modified throughout history.

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I think the main reason for giving things names is to identify them. Your reference to latin is particularly interesting, because this was a really logical attempt to name things which belonged to ‘families’. I think that the field where most people are really aware of latin is in plant names – if you look at the latin names you can see how experts made a real attempt at assigning plants into families. If you look at the solanaceae family, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and tobacco are all in the same family as deadly nightshade – that’s part of the reason why people thought potatoes would be poisonous (and they’re correct if you eat green ones!).

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Naming in science is very important, because we need to be able to communicate ideas clearly. Latin is a handy language to use because it doesn’t “belong” to anyone – so it is politically neutral to name something using a Latin name and it will tend to be taken up around the world. Often the names contain simple description of the object they describe. For example, the “Linea Alba”, which is found in the abdominal wall, translates to “white line” – and guess what, it looks like a white line!

      One of my favourite medical terms is “ideopathic cardiomyopathy” which roughly translates to “there is something wrong [-pathy] with your heart [cardio-] muscle [-myo-], but I don’t know what it is [ideo-]”. Idiotic obfuscation! Using Latin names can hide a lot of simple ideas.

    • Photo: Emma Carter

      Emma Carter answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Things are given names so that people know what other people are talking about without having to go into a really long detailed description – I guess they’re a kind of shorthand because they often describe the item to some degree – especially the latin names which can be really long

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