We haven't had a good argument here in a few days so I thought I'd start one!
Two for the price of one :
Do you mean "Taxonomy" or "Taxinomy" ?...
There doesn't seem to be a debate about that in English-speaking countries, everyone uses "taxonomy", from the French "taxonomie", a word coined in 1813 by
Augustin Pyrame de Candolle.
But "taxinomie" was recommended in 1864.
Anyway most people continue to use "taxonomie", whereas the word "taxon" was only created in 1948 by
Herman Johannes Lam
Excerpt from the "google translation" of the French page of Wikipedia, for those who like spending time on details :
Taxinomy was recommended in 1864. Émile Littré, in his Dictionary of the French Language (version 1872-1877) specified that the word taxinomy or taxionomy could also be used, formed on the Greek etymon taxis (order). The Grand dictionnaire terminologique, in Quebec, confirms that taxinomy is recommended by several authors considering "taxonomy" as "a tracing of the English taxonomy", which is however historically false. Indeed, taxonomy appears in English only in 1819 under the influence of French, six years after it was invented by De Candolle. French dictionaries, however, continue to spread this error that the graphical taxonomy (De Candolle, 1813) corresponds to the English taxonomy. On the contrary, most English dictionaries correctly claim that the word taxonomy derives from French, and for TLFI, the English taxonomy only appeared in 1828 in the American Webster's13 dictionary.
The term taxonomy does not derive from the word taxon, the latter being a concept appeared later (word created by the botanist Herman Johannes Lam in 1948). Thus, taxonomy is not, etymologically, the study of taxa but the laws on order, and therefore the rules of classification. Some specialists make a difference in the use, especially in botany, between the taxinomy which, formed on the Greek etymon nómos (law, rule), concerns the questions of classification, and the taxonomy which, formed on the Greek etymon ónoma (noun), refers to nomenclature issues. Other scholars use the term taxionomy in their activity, particularly in zoology, to name groups of living beings. However, the word taxonomy is also and very often used to name the science of describing taxa. Even authors advocating the use of the term "taxinomy" do not speak of "taxins" but of taxa, with the exception, however, of a specialist in entomology invoking the French diffusion of knowledge and deploring the influence of English. Other languages use terms similar to "taxonomy", not "taxinomy"; Thus, one writes taxonomy in German, taxonomy in English, taxonomía in Spanish (Castilian), taxonomia in Portuguese and Catalan, tassonomia in Italian, taconomy (taksonomiya) in Russian, etc.
PS: I tried to correct all the occurences of "taxonomy" where in French it was "taxinomie" (
taxinomy). The debate in itself is already hard to understand, but when the two words are translated the same in another language, it's totally surrealistic !
We haven't had a good argument here in a few days so I thought I'd start one!
Someone recently mentioned Iris Cohen : it would have been great to hear from her, she was such a "well of knowledge" on dendrology, nomenclature, classification, and always ready for a friendly argument on how to name things the right way...
