Taxonomic classiification.
Richard Chambers
of the Species", I have at last got round to reading the great work. I am
about half-way through it. Much of it is quite readable. The book was
published as a popular edition, starting a tradition followed by subsequent
scientists, such as Dawkins (Blind Clockmaker) and Hawkins (History of
Time).
However, I am having trouble with the taxonomic classifications Darwin uses.
With the help of the dictionary, I have discovered that a "genus" is the
group of very closely related species. A "family" is a group of
closely-related genera.
Beyond this point, my understanding (or perhaps my background knowledge)
breaks down. My dictionary tells me that an "order" is a taxonomic rank
above a family and below a class. A "class" is above an order and below a
division (or phylum). A "division" is, in Botany, "a major taxonomic
grouping" (sic), but in Zoology is "a subsidiary category between major
levels of classification" (sic). Two definitions which seem rather vague and
uninformative. Furthermore, these defintions do not give any clue as to the
name of the next level of taxonomic classification, so I lose the trail at
this point. It must end up, I believe, with the classification into
"kingdoms"; the Animal Kingdom, Plant Kingdom, and Fungus Kingdom.
The following is my rationalisation. Could a knowledgeable person please
check this and tell me whether I am right, and correct me where I am wrong:-
Genus: e.g. two or more slosely related daisies with the same first name in
the Latin naming system.
Family: e.g. all daisies, whether or not they have the same first name in
Latin.
Order: e.g. ??? all compositae, including thistles, etc, as well as
daisies. All cats. Or all bovines. ???
Class: e.g. ??? mammalia, reptilia, etc ???
Division: e.g. ??? vertebrata as opposed to invertebrata; or flowering
plants as opposed to ferns ???
Kingdom: the division of living beings into plants, animals and fungi.
Are there any taxononmic classifications between division and kingdom?
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
James Hogg
<richard.cham...@ntlworld.net> wrote:
>To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwins "Origin
>of the Species"
It's very commonly called that, but the short title is actually
"The Origin of Species".
--
James
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<richard.cham...@ntlworld.net> wrote:
At the risk of incurring the wrath of anti-Wikipedia-ists I looked at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnaean_taxonomy
It says:
Kingdoms are divided into phyla (singular: phylum) — for animals;
the term division, used for plants and fungi, is equivalent to the
rank of phylum (and the current International Code of Botanical
Nomenclature allows the use of either term).
So the answer to your question is No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank#Main_taxonomic_ranks
Main taxonomic ranks
Latin English
regio domain
regnum kingdom
phylum phylum
(divisio) (division)
classis class
ordo order
familia family
genus genus
species species
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank#Main_taxonomic_ranks
>
> Main taxonomic ranks
>
> Latin English
>
> regio domain
> regnum kingdom
> phylum phylum
> (divisio) (division)
> classis class
> ordo order
> familia family
> genus genus
> species species
This is Linnaean taxonomy as defined today. As it says on the above
page:
Carl Linnaeus used a ranking scale limited to: kingdom, class,
order, genus, species, and one lower rank, below species.
Linnaeus (1707-1778) preceded Darwin (1809–1882).
Philip Eden
>
> Carl Linnaeus used a ranking scale limited to: kingdom, class,
> order, genus, species, and one lower rank, below species.
>
>
Meteorologists use the family/genus/species part of the
system to classify cloud types, courtesy of Luke Howard's
work published in 1803. Formal classification now comprises
family/genus/species/variety ... plus, as required,
supplementary/mother-cloud ... the last being occasionally
required as clouds can "mutate" from one family to another
before your very eyes (as the dynamic influences on it change
with time).
Philip Eden
Barry
<richard.cham...@ntlworld.net> wrote:
>
>Are there any taxononmic classifications between division and kingdom?
>
For an information overload, see http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp.
The Integrated Taxonomic Information System ( http://www.itis.gov/) is
an excellent tool for determining scientific names.
Barry in Indy
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>
>The Integrated Taxonomic Information System ( http://www.itis.gov/) is
>an excellent tool for determining scientific names.
I saw a link to "Privacy statement and disclaimers" and half-hoped that
it would include a statement that "Personal details of some species have
been withheld at their request". No such luck.
Athel Cornish-Bowden
This is actually a very important difference. The "the" would imply
that Darwin was interested in one particular species (which people have
sometimes taken to be our own), whereas in reality "species" is plural
and he was interested in a very different question: how do new species
come into existence?
Of course, including the "the" doesn't totally exclude the right
interpretation, but it throws the reader off the track.
--
athel
John Dean
And we can look at clouds from both sides now.
--
John Dean
Oxford
Mike Mooney
> On 2009-04-01 12:20:25 +0200, James Hogg <Jas.H...@gOUTmail.com> said:
>
> > On Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:14:32 +0100, "Richard Chambers"
> > <richard.chambers7_NoSp...@ntlworld.net> wrote:
>
> >> To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwins "Origin
> >> of the Species"
>
> > It's very commonly called that, but the short title is actually
> > "The Origin of Species".
>
> This is actually a very important difference. The "the" would imply
> that Darwin was interested in one particular species (which people have
> sometimes taken to be our own), whereas in reality "species" is plural
>
Huh? "The species" can still be plural, shirley? "The Origin of [all]
the Species".
Mike M
James Hogg
"The species" can still be plural, of course, but the fact that
you feel the need to put in a parenthetical "all" in the
hypothetical title suggests why Darwin called his work
"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection",
without a definite article before "Species". He didn't mean
any specific species or even "all the species" that have existed
hitherto.
--
James
Athel Cornish-Bowden
<richard.cham...@ntlworld.net> said:
> [ ... ]
> The following is my rationalisation. Could a knowledgeable person please
> check this and tell me whether I am right, and correct me where I am wrong:-
>
> Genus: e.g. two or more slosely related daisies with the same first name in
> the Latin naming system.
Yes
> Family: e.g. all daisies, whether or not they have the same first name in
> Latin.
Yes
> Order: e.g. ??? all compositae, including thistles, etc, as well as
> daisies. All cats. Or all bovines. ???
Yes
>
> Class: e.g. ??? mammalia, reptilia, etc ???
Yes
> Division: e.g. ??? vertebrata as opposed to invertebrata;
Vertebrates are a sub-phylum within the chordates, which also include
some animals like lancelets that don't look as if they belong unless
you study them closely. Invertebrates are not nowadays regarded as a
proper taxon, because they include species that are less closely
related to one another than one of them is to the vertebrates. For
example, starfish are more closely related to humans than they are to
crabs, so it doesn't make sense to put them in a taxon that includes
crabs but not humans.
> or flowering
> plants as opposed to ferns ???
"Division" isn't much used by the biologists that I know (if at all).
You've forgotten Phylum
> Kingdom: the division of living beings into plants, animals and fungi.
Nowadays there are others: Eubacteria, Archaea, and it's not terribly
clearly how the Protozoa relate to one another or to the other
kingdoms. The standard model today has five kingdoms, but there may be
more in the future.
All these things get very messy when you try to be too precise. Some
biologists say that the only taxonomic level that is not just a matter
of opinion is the species, but even that fails for comparisons across
large expanses of time (we can't observe whether modern humans are
fertile with their ancestors of a million years ago, so where we draw
lines between ancestral species is a matter of opinion), and also for
"ring species" like seagulls.
For a clear modern account you can't do better than Dawkins's "The
Ancestor's Tale": if you buy it you must get the UK (Weidenfeld and
Nicolson) edition, because the US edition is very cheaply produced on
nasty paper with greatly inferior illustrations (though the text is the
same).
If you read it you'll be in for some surprises, like learning that
ordinary plants are more cloself related to animals than they are to
seaweed.
--
athel
Garrett Wollman
Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>You've forgotten Phylum
In school we were taught "King Phineas Called for an Order of Fried
Great Swordfish". (No, it's not supposed to make sense.) Now they've
glued domains onto the top but I haven't bothered to think of a good
adjective starting with "D" to add. At least when I learned this, it
was specifically the hierarchy used for animals: plants had a slightly
different one, and the classification of things like bacteria was a
mystery. (Bacteria have this lateral-gene-transfer problem that makes
any sort of taxonomy problematic.)
>For a clear modern account you can't do better than Dawkins's "The
>Ancestor's Tale": if you buy it you must get the UK (Weidenfeld and
>Nicolson) edition, because the US edition is very cheaply produced on
>nasty paper with greatly inferior illustrations (though the text is the
>same).
That's odd. Usually it's the UK books that are printed on cheap acid
paper and the US books that get the good stuff.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wol...@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
James Silverton
> In article <73hcrcF...@mid.individual.net>,
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> You've forgotten Phylum
> In school we were taught "King Phineas Called for an Order of
> Fried Great Swordfish". (No, it's not supposed to make
> sense.) Now they've glued domains onto the top but I haven't
> bothered to think of a good adjective starting with "D" to
> add.
How about "Dear King Phineas Called......."? It sounds so disgustingly
obsequious that even a good US citizen might remember it.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Leslie Danks
> Garrett wrote on Wed, 1 Apr 2009 16:21:54 +0000 (UTC):
>
>> In article <73hcrcF...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> You've forgotten Phylum
>
>> In school we were taught "King Phineas Called for an Order of
>> Fried Great Swordfish". (No, it's not supposed to make
>> sense.) Now they've glued domains onto the top but I haven't
>> bothered to think of a good adjective starting with "D" to
>> add.
>
> How about "Dear King Phineas Called......."? It sounds so disgustingly
> obsequious that even a good US citizen might remember it.
How about "Damned King Phineas..." for the rebs?
--
Les (BrE)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
[ ... ]
> That's odd. Usually it's the UK books that are printed on cheap acid
> paper and the US books that get the good stuff.
You may be right about the acid, but we'll have to wait at least 50
years, probably longer, after I'm dead, anyway, to know which edition
will disintegrate first.
I think in general what you say is true, but the Dawkins book is a
conspicuous exception.
--
athel
Athel Cornish-Bowden
It can, of course, but when creos imagine that Darwin's book is about
the origins of humans they are clearly treating it as singular.
--
athel
Skitt
But we really don't know life at all.
--
Skitt (AmE)
Mike Lyle
But we really don't know clouds at all.
--
Mike.
John Varela
wrote:
"Demented King Phineas..." for the Yankees.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
Mike Lyle
Perhaps make a rough mental note about "division", that in horticulture
it's sometimes used in an arbitrarily convenient way with no biological
significance. E.g., "Division 2. Trumpet narcissi of garden origin, with
one flower to a stem. The cup or corona is more than one-third the
length of the petals or perianths."
--
Mike.
Nick
> In article <73hcrcF...@mid.individual.net>,
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>You've forgotten Phylum
>
> In school we were taught "King Phineas Called for an Order of Fried
> Great Swordfish". (No, it's not supposed to make sense.) Now they've
> glued domains onto the top but I haven't bothered to think of a good
> adjective starting with "D" to add. At least when I learned this, it
> was specifically the hierarchy used for animals: plants had a slightly
> different one, and the classification of things like bacteria was a
> mystery. (Bacteria have this lateral-gene-transfer problem that makes
> any sort of taxonomy problematic.)
There are a good collection of slightly smutty ones around, along the
lines of Kinky Philip Came Over For Group Sex.
--
Online waterways route planner: http://canalplan.org.uk
development version: http://canalplan.eu
Martin Ambuhl
> However, I am having trouble with the taxonomic classifications Darwin uses.
> With the help of the dictionary, I have discovered that a "genus" is the
> group of very closely related species. A "family" is a group of
> closely-related genera.
>
> Beyond this point, my understanding (or perhaps my background knowledge)
> breaks down.
Here is a classification for humans that may help:
Kingdom: Animalia (see note [1] for other kingdoms)
Phylum[1]: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebra
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominida
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens
[1] In the kingdoms Prokaryotae, Fungi, and Plantae the term used is
"division". "Phylum" is used in Protoctista and Animalia.
Evan Kirshenbaum
It can, but you have to remember that the prevailing wisdom was that
"the species", those that then existed, were all that had ever
existed, their origin having occurred over a period of several days.
What made Darwin revolutionary was the notion that species creation
(and extinction) was a regular and ongoing process.
_The Origin of the Species_ would be how they came about. _The Origin
of Species_ is how they come about.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It is error alone which needs the
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |support of government. Truth can
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |stand by itself.
| Thomas Jefferson
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) writes:
>
>> In article <73hcrcF...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>You've forgotten Phylum
>>
>> In school we were taught "King Phineas Called for an Order of Fried
>> Great Swordfish". (No, it's not supposed to make sense.) Now
>> they've glued domains onto the top but I haven't bothered to think
>> of a good adjective starting with "D" to add. At least when I
>> learned this, it was specifically the hierarchy used for animals:
>> plants had a slightly different one, and the classification of
>> things like bacteria was a mystery. (Bacteria have this
>> lateral-gene-transfer problem that makes any sort of taxonomy
>> problematic.)
>
> There are a good collection of slightly smutty ones around, along
> the lines of Kinky Philip Came Over For Group Sex.
I can't remember what we learned--and I can never remember the middle
of the order--but looking it up just now, I came across
Kindly Put Clothes On, For Goodness Sake
which might be enough to remember it. You could prefix that with
"Do", if you like.
Some others from Google Books:
Kings Play Cards On Fine Frain Sand
Kids Pour Catsup Over Green Spiders
Kittens Prefer Cream or Fish, Generally Speaking
King Philip Came Over From Germany Soaked
(or From Greece Singing)
Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach
King Peter Came Over From Germany Saturday
King Pat Can Order Fresh Green Salad
Incorporating "Variety", you get:
Kings Play Cards On Fairly Good Soft Velvet
Kindly Place Cover On Fresh Green Spring Vegetables
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |...as a mobile phone is analogous
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to a Q-Tip -- yeah, it's something
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |you stick in your ear, but there
|all resemblance ends.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Ross Howard
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Here is a classification for humans that may help:
>
> Kingdom: Animalia (see note [1] for other kingdoms)
> Phylum[1]: Chordata
> Subphylum: Vertebra
> Class: Mammalia
> Order: Primates
> Family: Hominida
> Genus: Homo
> Species: sapiens
Although I've seen argument that the genus should be "Pan". (Or,
alternatively, that P. Troglodytes and P. paniscus, should be
considered to be Homo.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A specification which calls for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |network-wide use of encryption, but
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |invokes the Tooth Fairy to handle
|key distribution, is a useless
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |farce.
(650)857-7572 | Henry Spencer
R H Draney
Acting on a hunch that www.acronymfinder.com might have a pretty good list of
these, I first tried it out on another set of letters in search of a mnemonic:
Every Good Boy Does Fine
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (Mudhoney song)
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit
Every Good Boy Deserves Fun
Every Good Bird Does Fly
Every Good Boy Deserves Football
Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips
Elephants Get Big Dirty Feet
Every Green Bus Drives Fast
Every Good Burger Deserves Fries
Even George Bush Drives Fast
Elvis's Guitar Broke Down Friday
Every Girl Bakes Delicious Fudge
Elephants Go Bouncing Down Freeways
For the taxonomic categories, I got:
Keep Paying Casey Off For Gun Sales
Kids Playing Chicken on Freeways Get Smashed
King Paul Cried Out for Good Soup
King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup
Kings Play Chess On Fine Glass Surfaces
Kings Play Chess on Fine Gold Sets
Kings Play Chess On Finely Grained Sand
King Phillip Came Over From Germany Stoned
King Philip Couldn't Order Five Good Sandwiches
King Phillip Came Over for Good Sex
King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti
King Philip Came Over for Grape Soda
Keep Pots Clean or Family Gets Sick
Kelly Pets Chinese Orphans for Glazed Sofas
King Philip Come Out For Goodness Sake
King Phil Cleans Octopi For Gene Simmons
Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls' Stomachs
Kings Play Chess on Fat Green Stools
King Phillip Crossed Over France Going South
King Plute Came Out From Giant School
King Phillip Came Over From Great Spain
Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach
It seems that kings, particularly those called Philip, have this one sewed
up...and since I'm already there:
Oh, Be A Fine Girl/Guy, Kiss Me
Only Boys Accepting Feminism Get Kissed Meaningfully
Officially, Bill Always Felt Guilty Kissing Monica
(Adding "Right Now, Sweetheart" to the first of these extends the mnemonic to
three cooler classes)....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Roland Hutchinson
> Martin Ambuhl <mam...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>> Here is a classification for humans that may help:
>>
>> Kingdom: Animalia (see note [1] for other kingdoms)
>> Phylum[1]: Chordata
>> Subphylum: Vertebra
>> Class: Mammalia
>> Order: Primates
>> Family: Hominida
>> Genus: Homo
>> Species: sapiens
>
> Although I've seen argument that the genus should be "Pan". (Or,
> alternatively, that P. Troglodytes and P. paniscus, should be
> considered to be Homo.)
Homo (Linnaeus 1753) would take precedence over Pan (Oken 1816), if I
understand how things are done in the Animal kingdom.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
J. J. Lodder
I first became aware of this prolifereation of terminology
when reading Verne's 20.000 miles under the sea, long ago.
Conseil, the assistant (or manservant) of Prof Aronnax,
rattles of all those classifications of whatever they see
with alarming regularity.
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> Mike Mooney <mikm...@googlemail.com> writes:
>
> > On 1 Apr, 15:19, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >> On 2009-04-01 12:20:25 +0200, James Hogg <Jas.H...@gOUTmail.com> said:
> >>
> >> > On Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:14:32 +0100, "Richard Chambers"
> >> > <richard.chambers7_NoSp...@ntlworld.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles
> >> >> Darwins "Origin of the Species"
> >>
> >> > It's very commonly called that, but the short title is actually
> >> > "The Origin of Species".
> >>
> >> This is actually a very important difference. The "the" would imply
> >> that Darwin was interested in one particular species (which people
> >> have sometimes taken to be our own), whereas in reality "species"
> >> is plural
> >
> > Huh? "The species" can still be plural, shirley? "The Origin of
> > [all] the Species".
>
> It can, but you have to remember that the prevailing wisdom was that
> "the species", those that then existed, were all that had ever
> existed, their origin having occurred over a period of several days.
> What made Darwin revolutionary was the notion that species creation
> (and extinction) was a regular and ongoing process.
>
> _The Origin of the Species_ would be how they came about. _The Origin
> of Species_ is how they come about.
In the 18th century species going extinct
was believed by many to be impossible.
After all, the creation was perfect,
so there could be no superfluous species.
The fate of the Dodo came as a shock,
Jan
Roland Hutchinson
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> _The Origin of the Species_ would be how they came about. _The Origin
>> of Species_ is how they come about.
>
> In the 18th century species going extinct
> was believed by many to be impossible.
> After all, the creation was perfect,
> so there could be no superfluous species.
Not just perfect (complete), but a plenum: in modern terms, a niche for
every creature and every creature in its niche. (And not just for animate
creatures, but for minerals, etc., too.)
> The fate of the Dodo came as a shock,
To man and dodo alike, no doubt.
J. J. Lodder
> Richard Chambers wrote:
>
> > However, I am having trouble with the taxonomic classifications Darwin uses.
> > With the help of the dictionary, I have discovered that a "genus" is the
> > group of very closely related species. A "family" is a group of
> > closely-related genera.
> >
> > Beyond this point, my understanding (or perhaps my background knowledge)
> > breaks down.
>
> Here is a classification for humans that may help:
>
> Kingdom: Animalia (see note [1] for other kingdoms)
> Phylum[1]: Chordata
> Subphylum: Vertebra
> Class: Mammalia
> Order: Primates
> Family: Hominida
> Genus: Homo
> Species: sapiens
And
Subspecies: sapiens
We, Homo sapiens sapiens, share the Species: sapiens
with Homo sapiens neanderthaleensis.
(but some specicist authors consider that we should throw them out,
and make them a separate species to put them in their place)
Jan
Chuck Riggs
I particularly enjoyed "Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls' Stomachs" for
some reason.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland
James Silverton
>> wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) writes:
>>
>>> In article <73hcrcF...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> You've forgotten Phylum
>>>
>>> In school we were taught "King Phineas Called for an Order
>>> of Fried Great Swordfish". (No, it's not supposed to make
>>> sense.) Now they've glued domains onto the top but I
>>> haven't bothered to think of a good adjective starting with
>>> "D" to add. At least when I learned this, it was
>>> specifically the hierarchy used for animals: plants had a slightly
>>> different one, and the classification of things like
>>> bacteria was a mystery. (Bacteria have
>>> this lateral-gene-transfer problem that makes any sort of
>>> taxonomy problematic.)
>>
>> There are a good collection of slightly smutty ones around,
>> along the lines of Kinky Philip Came Over For Group Sex.
> I can't remember what we learned--and I can never remember the
> middle of the order--but looking it up just now, I came across
> Kindly Put Clothes On, For Goodness Sake
> which might be enough to remember it. You could prefix that
> with "Do", if you like.
I like that one and it has the advantage of not having any superfluous
conjunctions to cause confusion.
> Some others from Google Books:
--
Jens Brix Christiansen
> Oh, Be A Fine Girl/Guy, Kiss Me
> Only Boys Accepting Feminism Get Kissed Meaningfully
> Officially, Bill Always Felt Guilty Kissing Monica
>
> (Adding "Right Now, Sweetheart" to the first of these extends the mnemonic to
> three cooler classes)....r
They are not really cooler; instead, they are into heavy metal. Anyway,
it is no longer astronomically correct to use these classes.
--
Jens Brix Christiansen
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> [ ... ]
> And
> Subspecies: sapiens
>
> We, Homo sapiens sapiens, share the Species: sapiens
> with Homo sapiens neanderthaleensis.
> (but some specicist authors consider that we should throw them out,
> and make them a separate species to put them in their place)
Such genome information as there is for Neanderthals suggests that they
were different enough from ourselves to be reproductively isolated from
Homo sapiens sapiens of their time, so you don't have to be speciesist
to think that they are a separate species. However, on the same basis
you do have to be genusist to want to keep them and us in a separate
genus from chimpanzees and gorillas.
--
athel
Mike Mooney
wrote:
> On 2009-04-01 16:31:19 +0200, Mike Mooney <mikmoo...@googlemail.com> said:
>
> > Huh? "The species" can still be plural, shirley
>
> It can, of course, but when creos imagine that Darwin's book is about
> the origins of humans they are clearly treating it as singular.
>
Creos? Hadn't heard that one before. Is it in general use?
Mike M
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Such genome information as there is for Neanderthals suggests that
> they were different enough from ourselves to be reproductively
> isolated from Homo sapiens sapiens of their time, so you don't have
> to be speciesist to think that they are a separate species. However,
> on the same basis you do have to be genusist to want to keep them
> and us in a separate genus from chimpanzees and gorillas.
Chimps, yes, but I thought that it was clear that both we and they
were sufficiently different from gorillas.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There's been so much ado already
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |that any further ado would be
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |excessive.
| Lori Karkosky
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
>> Such genome information as there is for Neanderthals suggests that
>> they were different enough from ourselves to be reproductively
>> isolated from Homo sapiens sapiens of their time, so you don't have
>> to be speciesist to think that they are a separate species. However,
>> on the same basis you do have to be genusist to want to keep them
>> and us in a separate genus from chimpanzees and gorillas.
>
> Chimps, yes, but I thought that it was clear that both we and they
> were sufficiently different from gorillas.
I don't think the dust has settled yet. For a long time it was thought
that the bifurcation was between them on the other hand and us on the
other, then it was thought that it was between gorillas on the other
hand and the rest of us on the other, but there is still some
suggestion that you can't really tell. It is pretty clear, though, that
the three separated from one another in a rather short period, say
within 100 thousand years or so (the number is off the top of my head
-- I haven't checked recently). Bonobos are clearly closer to
chimpanzees than they are to either humans or gorillas.
Appearances can be very misleading, and have indeed misled. A couple of
years ago I was at a meeting where studies of the genetic variability
of chimpanzees were reported and compared with similar data for humans.
Very surprisingly, the chimpanzees show much greater variation within
one region of Africa than you see in the entire human population, and
when you compare chimpanzees from different regions of Africa the
variation is greater still. It seems clear that our ancestors went
through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
--
athel
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 2009-04-02 16:52:10 +0200, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
>
>> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>> Such genome information as there is for Neanderthals suggests that
>>> they were different enough from ourselves to be reproductively
>>> isolated from Homo sapiens sapiens of their time, so you don't
>>> have to be speciesist to think that they are a separate
>>> species. However, on the same basis you do have to be genusist to
>>> want to keep them and us in a separate genus from chimpanzees and
>>> gorillas.
>> Chimps, yes, but I thought that it was clear that both we and they
>> were sufficiently different from gorillas.
>
> I don't think the dust has settled yet. For a long time it was thought
> that the bifurcation was between them on the other hand and us on the
> other, then it was thought that it was between gorillas on the other
> hand and the rest of us on the other, but there is still some
> suggestion that you can't really tell. It is pretty clear, though,
> that the three separated from one another in a rather short period,
> say within 100 thousand years or so (the number is off the top of my
> head -- I haven't checked recently). Bonobos are clearly closer to
> chimpanzees than they are to either humans or gorillas.
The number sticking in my head was (relative to the human line) 7 MYA
for gorillas and 5 MYA for chimps (and 1 MYA for chimps and bonobos).
Looking at Dawkins's _The Ancestor's Tale_, he puts the Pan split at
5-7 MYA (with the bonobo split about 2 MYA) and the Gorilla split at
around 7 MYA. But I don't think I've seen anybody saying that it's
unclear whether gorillas split off first.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If I may digress momentarily from
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |the mainstream of this evening's
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |symposium, I'd like to sing a song
|which is completely pointless.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Tom Lehrer
(650)857-7572
JimboCat
The term in general use, in my experience, is "cretinist".
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
'The Bible is the rear-view mirror of reality, and it's labeled
"Objects In Fossil Record Are Closer Than They Appear".'
-- huey callison
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
...
> Very surprisingly, the chimpanzees show much greater variation within
> one region of Africa than you see in the entire human population, and
> when you compare chimpanzees from different regions of Africa the
> variation is greater still.
Interesting.
> It seems clear that our ancestors went
> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
> chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
--
Jerry Friedman
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
<richard.chambers7_NoSp...@ntlworld.net> wrote:
> To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwins "Origin
> about half-way through it. Much of it is quite readable. The book was
> published as a popular edition, starting a tradition followed by subsequent
> scientists, such as Dawkins (Blind Clockmaker) and Hawkins (History of
> Time).
>
> However, I am having trouble with the taxonomic classifications Darwin uses.
> With the help of the dictionary, I have discovered that a "genus" is the
> group of very closely related species. A "family" is a group of
> closely-related genera.
>
> Beyond this point, my understanding (or perhaps my background knowledge)
> above a family and below a class. A "class" is above an order and below a
> division (or phylum). A "division" is, in Botany, "a major taxonomic
> grouping" (sic), but in Zoology is "a subsidiary category between major
> levels of classification" (sic). Two definitions which seem rather vague and
> uninformative. Furthermore, these defintions do not give any clue as to the
> name of the next level of taxonomic classification, so I lose the trail at
> this point. It must end up, I believe, with the classification into
> "kingdoms"; the Animal Kingdom, Plant Kingdom, and Fungus Kingdom.
>
> The following is my rationalisation. Could a knowledgeable person please
> check this and tell me whether I am right, and correct me where I am wrong:-
>
> Genus: e.g. two or more slosely related daisies with the same first name in
> the Latin naming system.
> Family: e.g. all daisies, whether or not they have the same first name in
> Latin.
> Order: e.g. ??? all compositae, including thistles, etc, as well as
> daisies. All cats. Or all bovines. ???
>
> Class: e.g. ??? mammalia, reptilia, etc ???
> Division: e.g. ??? vertebrata as opposed to invertebrata; or flowering
> plants as opposed to ferns ???
> Kingdom: the division of living beings into plants, animals and fungi.
As people have told you, this is the right idea. However, not all of
your examples work.
Compositae (or Asteraceae) is a family, though huge. It's divided
into subfamilies (the four biggest being Asteroideae, Cichorioideae,
Carduoideae and Mutisioideae). The huge Asteroidea is divided into
tribes. I think most daisies are scattered among some of those
tribes, though we might call some species in other subfamilies daisies
too (maybe /Stokesia/, for instance).
This family is in the order Asterales, of which Campanulaceae
(including Lobeliaceae) is the only other big family and the only
other one I'd heard of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteraceae
Cats are a family, Felidae, in the order Carnivora.
Bovines (cows, buffalo, bison, but not the musk ox) form a tribe,
Bovini. That's in the subfamily Bovinae, which includes other tribes:
the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. That's in the family
Bovidae, which contains other subfamilies comprising the goats and
sheep (subfamily Caprinae, tribe Caprini) and the rest of the
antelopes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovinae
Many modern classifications rely more on family trees than on these
traditional ranks. For instance, birds are descended from reptiles
just as much as lizards are, so many taxonomists consider it a bad
idea to have a "Reptilia" that excludes birds. In particular,
crocodiles are now believed to be closer to birds than to
snakes&lizards and turtles. This article contains a tree or
"cladogram" that shows a modern idea of the relationships of the
vertebrates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clade
Of course, both the principles and the specific relationships
everywhere in taxonomy are subject to controversy.
--
Jerry Friedman
Adam Funk
If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
snobs.
--
I spend almost as time figuring out what's wrong with my computer as
I do actually using it. Networked software, especially, requires
frequent updates and maintenance, all of which gets in the way of
doing routine work. (Stoll 1995)
J. J. Lodder
> On Apr 2, 10:11 am, Mike Mooney <mikmoo...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On 1 Apr, 18:47, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On 2009-04-01 16:31:19 +0200, Mike Mooney <mikmoo...@googlemail.com> said:
> >
> > > > Huh? "The species" can still be plural, shirley
> >
> > > It can, of course, but when creos imagine that Darwin's book is about
> > > the origins of humans they are clearly treating it as singular.
> >
> > Creos? Hadn't heard that one before. Is it in general use?
Not a typo for creas?
> The term in general use, in my experience, is "cretinist".
Quite obsolete. It's IDiot nowadays,
and that of course is something entirely different.
Judge Jones didn't agree though,
Jan
Roland Hutchinson
> On 2009-04-02, jerry_f...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> On Apr 2, 9:33 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> It seems clear that our ancestors went
>>> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
>>> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
>>> chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
>>> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
>>
>> Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
>> ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
>
> If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
> snobs.
Which is nothing at all compared to what our forebears likely called the
chimps.
R H Draney
>
>Adam Funk wrote:
>
>> On 2009-04-02, jerry_f...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 2, 9:33 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>> It seems clear that our ancestors went
>>>> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
>>>> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
>>>> chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
>>>> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
>>>
>>> Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
>>> ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
>>
>> If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
>> snobs.
>
>Which is nothing at all compared to what our forebears likely called the
>chimps.
There's always the possibility that it was the chimps who decided to break off
relations....r
Roland Hutchinson
> Roland Hutchinson filted:
>>
>>Adam Funk wrote:
>>
>>> On 2009-04-02, jerry_f...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Apr 2, 9:33 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It seems clear that our ancestors went
>>>>> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
>>>>> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
>>>>> chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
>>>>> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
>>>>
>>>> Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
>>>> ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
>>>
>>> If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
>>> snobs.
>>
>>Which is nothing at all compared to what our forebears likely called the
>>chimps.
>
> There's always the possibility that it was the chimps who decided to break
> off relations....r
Sensible creature, the chimp.
Robert Bannister
> I particularly enjoyed "Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls' Stomachs" for
> some reason.
On the other hand, this is why I don't use mnemonics: I find them harder
to remember accurately than the thing I'm really trying to remember.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
I thought that stuff in the bible about lying with animals only referred
to sheep - damned hard to get them to lie down, though.
--
Rob Bannister
Mark Brader
> On the other hand, this is why I don't use mnemonics: I find them harder
> to remember accurately than the thing I'm really trying to remember.
So if you can remember the thing, you can use it to remind you of the
mnemonic. What's the problem? :-)
--
Mark Brader "You can't [compare] computer memory and recall
Toronto with human memory and recall. It's comparing
m...@vex.net apples and bicycles." -- Ed Knowles
James Hogg
There's an illustration of that in a sonnet I posted yesterday:
The subject of taxonomy lives on,
Not boinks this time, but all of life's at stake.
We'll not forget the elegant mnemon-
ic: Kindly Put On Clothes For Goodness Sake.
The proper order of the words is Kindly Put Clothes On For
Goodness Sake. To get a nicer rhythm in the line I had to make
Class and Order change place. The fact that this can happen shows
not only that this is a dangerous mnemonic, it's also solid
evidence against intelligent design.
--
James
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> JimboCat <10313...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 2, 10:11 am, Mike Mooney <mikmoo...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> On 1 Apr, 18:47, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2009-04-01 16:31:19 +0200, Mike Mooney <mikmoo...@googlemail.com> said:
>>>
>>>>> Huh? "The species" can still be plural, shirley
>>>
>>>> It can, of course, but when creos imagine that Darwin's book is about
>>>> the origins of humans they are clearly treating it as singular.
>>>
>>> Creos? Hadn't heard that one before. Is it in general use?
>
> Not a typo for creas?
I don't think I've heard that one, but I'd understand it if I did. I
regard "creo" as short for "creotard", but I'm not too sure what the
AmE suffix -tard means (though I don't think it's very polite) I prefer
the shorter form. I'm not sure I'd claim that it's "in general use",
but it's not unique to me.
>
>> The term in general use, in my experience, is "cretinist".
>
> Quite obsolete. It's IDiot nowadays,
> and that of course is something entirely different.
>
> Judge Jones didn't agree though,
>
> Jan
--
athel
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> [ ... ]
> Looking at Dawkins's _The Ancestor's Tale_, he puts the Pan split at
> 5-7 MYA (with the bonobo split about 2 MYA) and the Gorilla split at
> around 7 MYA. But I don't think I've seen anybody saying that it's
> unclear whether gorillas split off first.
Maybe you're right, and Dawkins expresses the current view. I'll need
to check, but I think that some years ago (nice vague term, that[1])
there was still some doubt about it.
A propos of another current thread, "that" in that position seems
natural to me, and "that's a nice vague term" would strike me as feeble.
--
athel
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I don't think I've heard that one, but I'd understand it if I did. I
> regard "creo" as short for "creotard", but I'm not too sure what the
> AmE suffix -tard means (though I don't think it's very polite)
Short for "retard" (accent on the first syllable), a not very polite
term for a mentally retarded person. The OED calls is American and
only cites it to 1970, which seems late, but is probably (just) before
I learned it.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The reason that we don't have
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |"bear-proof" garbage cans in the
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |park is that there is a significant
|overlap in intelligence between the
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |smartest bears and the dumbest
(650)857-7572 |humans.
| Yosemite Park Ranger
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Evan Kirshenbaum
> It seems clear that our ancestors went through a bottleneck and that
> we're all descended from a single small group of individuals who
> were already reproductively isolated from chimpanzees and gorillas
> (whether geographically or by incompatibiility, for example because
> they have 48 chromosomes).
Almost certainly geographically. There's a gene known as the "baboon
marker" which apparently developed to provide immunity from some
highly contagious and deadly disease that jumped from baboons. No
non-African primate has this marker, and all African apes and monkeys
do. Humans don't. Which would appear to mean that at the critical
point, the human population was geographically isolated from all of
the other African primates. This has been taken as evidence both for
an early migration into Asia (and, later back again before leaving a
second time) or, more probable in my view, a (long, but temporary)
separation of the human geographic range from the rest of the African
continent.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |So when can we quit passing laws and
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |raising taxes? When can we say of
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |our political system, "Stick a fork
|in it, it's done?"
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | P.J. O'Rourke
(650)857-7572
J. J. Lodder
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> writes:
>
> > I don't think I've heard that one, but I'd understand it if I did. I
> > regard "creo" as short for "creotard", but I'm not too sure what the
> > AmE suffix -tard means (though I don't think it's very polite)
>
> Short for "retard" (accent on the first syllable), a not very polite
> term for a mentally retarded person. The OED calls is American and
> only cites it to 1970, which seems late, but is probably (just) before
> I learned it.
-tard seems to be gaining usage as a general purpose intensifier,
as in 'fucktard'. Used for example in.
<Message-ID: <jnr2f4l8g3l7f54qs...@4ax.com>
Jan
Leslie Danks
Usenet banter among proponents of different operating systems frequently
includes the epithets "wintard" and "lintard".
--
Les (BrE)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
>> [ ... ]
>> suggestion that you can't really tell. It is pretty clear, though,
>> that the three separated from one another in a rather short period,
>> say within 100 thousand years or so (the number is off the top of my
>> head -- I haven't checked recently). Bonobos are clearly closer to
>> chimpanzees than they are to either humans or gorillas.
>
> The number sticking in my head was (relative to the human line) 7 MYA
> for gorillas and 5 MYA for chimps (and 1 MYA for chimps and bonobos).
>
> Looking at Dawkins's _The Ancestor's Tale_, he puts the Pan split at
> 5-7 MYA (with the bonobo split about 2 MYA) and the Gorilla split at
> around 7 MYA. But I don't think I've seen anybody saying that it's
> unclear whether gorillas split off first.
Yes, you're (almost) right, and I certainly need to update my ideas on this.
I say "almost" because Dobzhansky et al. in their famous book Evolution
do have a Fig. 9-16 showing a three-way fork between humans,
chimpanzees and gorillas, occurring clearly after the separation from
orangutans, which was itself after the split from gibbons and siamangs,
itself a _long_ time after the split from Old World monkeys. On the
previous page they have a table showing human and gorilla closer to one
another than to chimpanzees, and on the facing page they have another
table showing humans, chimpanzees and orangutans much closer to one
another than any are to gorillas. However, the book was published in
1977 and both tables and the first figure are based on immunological
data of Sarich and Wilson from 1967. So it would be absurd to claim
that Fig. 9-16 represents the current view, and, of course, far better
measures than immunological distance are available today.
--
athel
Chuck Riggs
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
Same here. As a memory back-up, the old pen and paper method works
best for me. Even with the various electronic gadgets at my disposal,
I find a scribbled note to myself is often the fastest and surest way
of retaining information.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
Britain's Channel 4 recently reported the results of an informal study
which indicates that women are turned off by hairy men. Their
hypothesis was that our human ancestors gradually lost most of their
body hair through sexual selection.
CDB
"Late", innit. And sometimes given as "-tart", which crosses yet
another thread.
J. J. Lodder
No need to think of retard as the origin, I think.
There are other -tard words that may do as well,
bastard for example,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
James Hogg
The suffix is -ard, and it has given us quite a few words, some
via French (like bastard), others as native coinages:
dotard, coward, mallard, wizard, buzzard, drunkard, laggard,
sluggard, braggart, and cockade, originally cockard.
--
James
James Silverton
>> Chuck Riggs wrote:
>>
>>> I particularly enjoyed "Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls'
>>> Stomachs" for some reason.
>>
>> On the other hand, this is why I don't use mnemonics: I find them
>> harder to remember accurately than the thing I'm really
>> trying to remember.
> Same here. As a memory back-up, the old pen and paper method
> works best for me. Even with the various electronic gadgets at
> my disposal, I find a scribbled note to myself is often the
> fastest and surest way of retaining information.
I don't use mnemonics much but I do remember using one or two as a
student. There was the long one for the geological eras and another for
the Lanthanide chemical elements. That last was perhaps sexist and maybe
one of the longest : "Ladies Can't Put Nickels Properly in
Slot-machines. Every Girl Tries Daily, However, Every Time You Look". I
have seen that one with "into" but it is easier to avoid assigning a
name to the short "in". I would otherwise have needed to learn the names
of those elements by rote since there is no inherent logic to the names,
even if there is historical justification. It could be guaranteed that
there would be an exam question where the names would be needed.
There are other memory aids that are fairly common such as dividing
numbers into groups. I remember my Public Library number as three groups
of figures, five, four, five mainly because the last two groups start
with zero.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Frances Kemmish
>
> Britain's Channel 4 recently reported the results of an informal study
> which indicates that women are turned off by hairy men. Their
> hypothesis was that our human ancestors gradually lost most of their
> body hair through sexual selection.
I thought they were getting it waxed:
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/commercials/2008/5/harrison-ford-chest-wax.jpg
Fran
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
>Roland Hutchinson filted:
>>
>>Adam Funk wrote:
>>
>>> On 2009-04-02, jerry_f...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Apr 2, 9:33 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> It seems clear that our ancestors went
>>>>> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
>>>>> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
>>>>> chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
>>>>> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
>>>>
>>>> Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
>>>> ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
>>>
>>> If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
>>> snobs.
>>
>>Which is nothing at all compared to what our forebears likely called the
>>chimps.
>
>There's always the possibility that it was the chimps who decided to break off
>relations....r
<dodgy science>
It is quite clear why humans came into existence.
Our shared ancestors were happily living in trees.
One day a female was born with a number of genetic abnormalities. The
effect of one of these abnormalities was a fear of heights. As soon as
she became independent of her mother she climbed doewn to the ground and
stayed there. One or more males took a fancy to her and joined her on
the ground. Her fear of heights was inherited by her offspring and her
offspring's offspring. This band of groundling primates developed in
isolation from their high-living relatives.
</dodgy science>
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Pat Durkin
"James Hogg" <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote in message
news:odtbt4564sj622kug...@4ax.com...
petard?
Egbert White
wrote:
<snip>
>Britain's Channel 4 recently reported the results of an informal study
>which indicates that women are turned off by hairy men. Their
>hypothesis was that our human ancestors gradually lost most of their
>body hair through sexual selection.
A young lady of Asian ethnicity once told me the hair on my arms made
them look dirty.
--
"How dreary, to be...Somebody! How public, like a frog, to
tell one's name, the live-long June, to an admiring bog!"
<Emily Dickinson>
James Hogg
wrote:
That too. The suffix has been used to form inanimate words as
well. Other examples are placard and standard.
--
James
CDB
> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>> Leslie Danks <leslie...@aon.at> wrote:
>>> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>>>>> Athel Cornish-Bowden writes:
>>>>>> I don't think I've heard that one, but I'd understand it if I
>>>>>> did. I regard "creo" as short for "creotard", but I'm not too
>>>>>> sure what the AmE suffix -tard means (though I don't think
>>>>>> it's very polite)
>>>>> Short for "retard" (accent on the first syllable), a not very
>>>>> polite term for a mentally retarded person. The OED calls is
>>>>> American and only cites it to 1970, which seems late, but is
>>>>> probably (just) before I learned it.
>>>> -tard seems to be gaining usage as a general purpose intensifier,
>>>> as in 'fucktard'. Used for example in.
>>>> <Message-ID: <jnr2f4l8g3l7f54qs...@4ax.com>
>>> Usenet banter among proponents of different operating systems
>>> frequently includes the epithets "wintard" and "lintard".
>> No need to think of retard as the origin, I think.
>> There are other -tard words that may do as well,
>> bastard for example,
> The suffix is -ard, and it has given us quite a few words, some
> via French (like bastard), others as native coinages:
> dotard, coward, mallard, wizard, buzzard, drunkard, laggard,
> sluggard, braggart, and cockade, originally cockard.
But seriously, folks, the second element of "fucktard" and "creotard"
is "tard", unless you want the first element to be "fuckt" or "creot".
The first is a portmanteau of "fucking retard", and the second is
either analogous to it or itself a portmanteau of "creationist
retard". The suffix "-ard", at least in NAmE, is unstressed and
pronounced / 3rd/ in all the examples given except "cockade", which
has a different history than (sic) the others. The element "-tard",
on the other hand, reproduces exactly the stress and pronunciation of
the offensive use of "retard".
"Retard", being a derivative of French "tard", late, doesn't contain
the "-ard" suffix. Interestingly, the earlier form of that word was
"tart"; more interestingly, it comes from the Latin "tardis"; yet more
interestingly, Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
which shows how much he knows.
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
>
> > >> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> writes:
>
> > >> > I don't think I've heard that one, but I'd understand it if I did. I
> > >> > regard "creo" as short for "creotard", but I'm not too sure what the
> > >> > AmE suffix -tard means (though I don't think it's very polite)
>
> > >> Short for "retard" (accent on the first syllable), a not very polite
> > >> term for a mentally retarded person. The OED calls is American and
> > >> only cites it to 1970, which seems late, but is probably (just) before
> > >> I learned it.
>
> > > -tard seems to be gaining usage as a general purpose intensifier,
> > > as in 'fucktard'. Used for example in.
>
> > Usenet banter among proponents of different operating systems frequently
> > includes the epithets "wintard" and "lintard".
>
> No need to think of retard as the origin, I think.
> There are other -tard words that may do as well,
> bastard for example,
Let me assure you that, as Evan said, this "tard" suffix is short for
"retard". It's pronounced /tArd/ as in /'ri,tArd/, not /tRd/ as in
"bastard". The often depreciative meaning of -ard and especially
"bastard" may have reinforced it, but the meaning is "mentally
disabled". "Tard" exists on its own, as does "tardboy", and probably
others. If anything is a general-purpose intensifier in "fucktard",
it's the first syllable, and you can get the idea by interpreting it
as "fucking retard", like "fucking idiot"--though of course calling
someone stupid may be a general-purpose insult.
--
Jerry Friedman
Pat Durkin
news:gr59ge$sko$1...@news.motzarella.org
bustard, mustard, custard.
R H Draney
>
>> James Hogg wrote:
>>> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>>>> No need to think of retard as the origin, I think.
>>>> There are other -tard words that may do as well,
>>>> bastard for example,
>>
>>> The suffix is -ard, and it has given us quite a few words, some
>>> via French (like bastard), others as native coinages:
>>
>>> dotard, coward, mallard, wizard, buzzard, drunkard, laggard,
>>> sluggard, braggart, and cockade, originally cockard.
>
>bustard, mustard, custard.
There's a major arterial street in the north end of Tucson called "Ina Road",
which the signs show as "INA RD"...it always gives me the impression that
someone was trying to write "innard" and messed up, and I find myself wondering
if Ina has a sister named Liza....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
R H Draney
>
> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:55:32 +0100, Chuck Riggs <chr...@eircom.net>
>wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>Britain's Channel 4 recently reported the results of an informal study
>>which indicates that women are turned off by hairy men. Their
>>hypothesis was that our human ancestors gradually lost most of their
>>body hair through sexual selection.
>
>A young lady of Asian ethnicity once told me the hair on my arms made
>them look dirty.
I wonder what she'd think of Alyssa Milano:
http://anythinghollywood.com/2007/08/alyssa-milano-needs-to-wax-or-bleach-her-hairy-arms/
Mark Brader
> But seriously, folks, the second element of "fucktard" and "creotard"
> is "tard", unless you want the first element to be "fuckt" or "creot".
> The first is a portmanteau of "fucking retard", and the second is
> either analogous to it or itself a portmanteau of "creationist
I never heard it before, but when I saw it in this thread I immediately
took it to have that meaning.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "One thing that surprises you about this business
m...@vex.net | is the surprises." -- Tim Baker
J. J. Lodder
Don't agree. Consider the examples already given,
wintard, and lintard, not winard and linard,
Jan
James Hogg
Lodder) wrote:
Depends on which word we're talking about. There's now a
productive suffix -tard, I'll grant you that, quite likely
derived from retard.
--
James
Leslie Danks
> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 22:19:28 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
> Lodder) wrote:
>
>>James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>>> The suffix is -ard, and it has given us quite a few words, some
>>> via French (like bastard), others as native coinages:
>>>
>>> dotard, coward, mallard, wizard, buzzard, drunkard, laggard,
>>> sluggard, braggart, and cockade, originally cockard.
>>
>>Don't agree. Consider the examples already given,
>>wintard, and lintard, not winard and linard,
>
> Depends on which word we're talking about. There's now a
> productive suffix -tard, I'll grant you that, quite likely
> derived from retard.
In the case of "wintard", but not in the case of "lintard", which is navel
in orangin.
--
Les (BrE)
John Varela
wrote:
> Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Duh.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
Egbert White
wrote:
>Egbert White filted:
>>
>> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:55:32 +0100, Chuck Riggs <chr...@eircom.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>>Britain's Channel 4 recently reported the results of an informal study
>>>which indicates that women are turned off by hairy men. Their
>>>hypothesis was that our human ancestors gradually lost most of their
>>>body hair through sexual selection.
>>
>>A young lady of Asian ethnicity once told me the hair on my arms made
>>them look dirty.
>
>I wonder what she'd think of Alyssa Milano:
>
>http://anythinghollywood.com/2007/08/alyssa-milano-needs-to-wax-or-bleach-her-hairy-arms/
Alyssa doesn't appear to have quite as much hair on her arm as I do,
but the young lady in Manila would probably still disapprove. At
least, Alyssa doesn't appear to have any hair on her chest--as far as
I can see anyway, but that leaves me wanting to see more.
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
> "CDB" <bellema...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> >>>> J. J. Lodder wrote:
> >>>>> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> >>>>>> Athel Cornish-Bowden writes:
>
> >>>>>>> I don't think I've heard that one, but I'd understand it if I
> >>>>>>> did. I regard "creo" as short for "creotard", but I'm not too
> >>>>>>> sure what the AmE suffix -tard means (though I don't think
> >>>>>>> it's very polite)
>
> >>>>>> Short for "retard" (accent on the first syllable), a not very
> >>>>>> polite term for a mentally retarded person. The OED calls is
> >>>>>> American and only cites it to 1970, which seems late, but is
> >>>>>> probably (just) before I learned it.
>
> >>>>> -tard seems to be gaining usage as a general purpose intensifier,
> >>>>> as in 'fucktard'. Used for example in.
>
> >>>> Usenet banter among proponents of different operating systems
> >>>> frequently includes the epithets "wintard" and "lintard".
>
> >>> No need to think of retard as the origin, I think.
> >>> There are other -tard words that may do as well,
> >>> bastard for example,
>
> >> The suffix is -ard, and it has given us quite a few words, some
> >> via French (like bastard), others as native coinages:
>
> >> dotard, coward, mallard, wizard, buzzard, drunkard, laggard,
> >> sluggard, braggart, and cockade, originally cockard.
>
> > But seriously, folks, the second element of "fucktard" and "creotard"
> > is "tard", unless you want the first element to be "fuckt" or "creot".
> > The first is a portmanteau of "fucking retard", and the second is
> > either analogous to it or itself a portmanteau of "creationist
> > retard". The suffix "-ard", at least in NAmE, is unstressed and
> > pronounced / 3rd/ in all the examples given except "cockade", which
> > has a different history than (sic) the others. The element "-tard",
> > on the other hand, reproduces exactly the stress and pronunciation of
> > the offensive use of "retard".
>
> > "Retard", being a derivative of French "tard", late, doesn't contain
> > the "-ard" suffix. Interestingly, the earlier form of that word was
> > "tart"; more interestingly, it comes from the Latin "tardis"; yet more
> > interestingly, Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
> > which shows how much he knows.
>
> bustard, mustard, custard.
"Bustard" is related to "retarded": "Middle English, from blend of Old
French /bistarde/ and Old French /oustarde/, both from Latin /avis
tarda/: /avis/, bird; see _awi_- in Appendix I + /tarda/, feminine of /
tardus/, slow."
Partridge says "oustarde" comes from Latin /auis tarda/, making the
word evidence that the same Latin letter was pronounced like our "v"
and "u".
Custard seems to reverse what happened to "cockade": "Middle English /
crustade, custard,/ a pie with a crust, probably from Old Provençal /
croustado./ See croustade."
--
Jerry Friedman
Pat Durkin
news:c13a9eb0-19d2-4fcf...@s19g2000vbp.googlegroups.com
> On Apr 3, 9:46 am, "Pat Durkin" <durk...@sbc.com> wrote:
>> "CDB" <bellema...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
>>
>> news:gr59ge$sko$1...@news.motzarella.org
>>
>>> "Retard", being a derivative of French "tard", late, doesn't contain
>>> the "-ard" suffix. Interestingly, the earlier form of that word was
>>> "tart"; more interestingly, it comes from the Latin "tardis"; yet
>>> more interestingly, Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure
>>> origin: which shows how much he knows.
>>
>> bustard, mustard, custard.
>
> "Bustard" is related to "retarded": "Middle English, from blend of Old
> French /bistarde/ and Old French /oustarde/, both from Latin /avis
> tarda/: /avis/, bird; see _awi_- in Appendix I + /tarda/, feminine of
> / tardus/, slow."
>
> Partridge says "oustarde" comes from Latin /auis tarda/, making the
> word evidence that the same Latin letter was pronounced like our "v"
> and "u".
>
> Custard seems to reverse what happened to "cockade": "Middle English /
> crustade, custard,/ a pie with a crust, probably from Old Provençal /
> croustado./ See croustade."
These switches in letter order/sound order fascinate me.
Thanks, Jerry
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
> <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:c13a9eb0-19d2-4fcf...@s19g2000vbp.googlegroups.com
> > On Apr 3, 9:46 am, "Pat Durkin" <durk...@sbc.com> wrote:
> >> bustard, mustard, custard.
>
> > "Bustard" is related to "retarded": "Middle English, from blend of Old
> > French /bistarde/ and Old French /oustarde/, both from Latin /avis
> > tarda/: /avis/, bird; see _awi_- in Appendix I + /tarda/, feminine of
> > / tardus/, slow."
>
> > Partridge says "oustarde" comes from Latin /auis tarda/, making the
> > word evidence that the same Latin letter was pronounced like our "v"
> > and "u".
>
> > Custard seems to reverse what happened to "cockade": "Middle English /
> > crustade, custard,/ a pie with a crust, probably from Old Provençal /
> > croustado./ See croustade."
>
> These switches in letter order/sound order fascinate me.
>
> Thanks, Jerry
A pleasure. Sorry, I forgot to say the etymologies are from the AHD.
--
Jerry Friedman
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
>On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:20:43 UTC, "CDB" <belle...@sympatico.ca>
>wrote:
>
>> Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
>
>Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Duh.
Did the Doctor say that or did you make it up, John?
Chuck Riggs
With the elements, isn't carrying a card naming them all, or buying a
proper wall chart of the elements, the best solution?
the Omrud
> On 3 Apr 2009 20:46:08 GMT, "John Varela" <OLDl...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:20:43 UTC, "CDB" <belle...@sympatico.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
>> Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Duh.
>
> Did the Doctor say that or did you make it up, John?
It was said by the first Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, in the first
episode in 1963, which I clearly remember watching. She had been
followed "home" by two of her teachers who then got accidentally whisked
away to the stone age.
It was the same week that JFK was killed, which I also remember, but I
have no connection between the two in my seven-year-old mind.
--
David
John Holmes
> On 2009-04-01 12:14:32 +0200, "Richard Chambers"
> <richard.cham...@ntlworld.net> said:
>
>> [ ... ]
>
>> The following is my rationalisation. Could a knowledgeable person
>> please check this and tell me whether I am right, and correct me
>> where I am wrong:- Genus: e.g. two or more slosely related daisies
>> with the same first
>> name in the Latin naming system.
>
> Yes
>
>> Family: e.g. all daisies, whether or not they have the same first
>> name in Latin.
>
> Yes
>
>> Order: e.g. ??? all compositae, including thistles, etc, as well as
>> daisies. All cats. Or all bovines. ???
>
> Yes
>>
>> Class: e.g. ??? mammalia, reptilia, etc ???
>
> Yes
>
>> Division: e.g. ??? vertebrata as opposed to invertebrata;
>
> Vertebrates are a sub-phylum within the chordates, which also include
> some animals like lancelets that don't look as if they belong unless
> you study them closely. Invertebrates are not nowadays regarded as a
> proper taxon, because they include species that are less closely
> related to one another than one of them is to the vertebrates. For
> example, starfish are more closely related to humans than they are to
> crabs, so it doesn't make sense to put them in a taxon that includes
> crabs but not humans.
>
>> or flowering
>> plants as opposed to ferns ???
>
> "Division" isn't much used by the biologists that I know (if at all).
>
> You've forgotten Phylum
>
>> Kingdom: the division of living beings into plants, animals and
>> fungi.
>
> Nowadays there are others: Eubacteria, Archaea, and it's not terribly
> clearly how the Protozoa relate to one another or to the other
> kingdoms. The standard model today has five kingdoms, but there may be
> more in the future.
>
> All these things get very messy when you try to be too precise. Some
> biologists say that the only taxonomic level that is not just a matter
> of opinion is the species, but even that fails for comparisons across
> large expanses of time (we can't observe whether modern humans are
> fertile with their ancestors of a million years ago, so where we draw
> lines between ancestral species is a matter of opinion), and also for
> "ring species" like seagulls.
>
> For a clear modern account you can't do better than Dawkins's "The
> Ancestor's Tale": if you buy it you must get the UK (Weidenfeld and
> Nicolson) edition, because the US edition is very cheaply produced on
> nasty paper with greatly inferior illustrations (though the text is
> the same).
>
> If you read it you'll be in for some surprises, like learning that
> ordinary plants are more cloself related to animals than they are to
> seaweed.
This web site can be a lot of fun:
http://www.tolweb.org/Life_on_Earth/1
You can click on the various branches to expand and drill down to see
what's where. Or start from a species and click up the levels. To get to
us for example:
Life on Earth, Eukaryotes, Animals (Kingdom), Bilateria, Deuterostomia,
Chordata (Phylum), Craniata, Vertebrata, Gnathostomata, Sarcopterygii,
Terrestrial Vertebrates, Amniota, Synapsida, Therapsida, Mammalia
(Class), Eutheria, Primates (Order), Catarrhini, Hominidae (Family),
Homo sapiens
So that is using a lot of intermediate levels between those Richard is
asking about, but the style of the layout makes it easy to get a feel
for the way things are related, with a bit of up and down clicking.
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
John Holmes
what's where. To get to us for eample:
Life on Earth Eukaryotes Animals Bilateria Deuterostomia Chordata
Craniata Vertebrata Gnathostomata Sarcopterygii Terrestrial Vertebrates
Amniota Synapsida Therapsida Mammalia Eutheria Primates Catarrhini
Hominidae Homo sapiens
John Holmes
what's where. Or start from a species and click up the levels. To get to
us for example:
Life on Earth, Eukaryotes, Animals (Kingdom), Bilateria, Deuterostomia,
Chordata (Phylum), Craniata, Vertebrata, Gnathostomata, Sarcopterygii,
Terrestrial Vertebrates, Amniota, Synapsida, Therapsida, Mammalia
(Class), Eutheria, Primates (Order), Catarrhini, Hominidae (Family),
Homo sapiens
So that is using a lot of intermediate levels between those Richard is
asking about, but the style of the layout makes it easy to get a feel
for the way things are related, with a bit of up and down clicking.
--
Chuck Riggs
<eggw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 3 Apr 2009 09:25:13 -0700, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Egbert White filted:
>>>
>>> On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:55:32 +0100, Chuck Riggs <chr...@eircom.net>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>>Britain's Channel 4 recently reported the results of an informal study
>>>>which indicates that women are turned off by hairy men. Their
>>>>hypothesis was that our human ancestors gradually lost most of their
>>>>body hair through sexual selection.
>>>
>>>A young lady of Asian ethnicity once told me the hair on my arms made
>>>them look dirty.
>>
>>I wonder what she'd think of Alyssa Milano:
>>
>>http://anythinghollywood.com/2007/08/alyssa-milano-needs-to-wax-or-bleach-her-hairy-arms/
>
>Alyssa doesn't appear to have quite as much hair on her arm as I do,
>but the young lady in Manila would probably still disapprove. At
>least, Alyssa doesn't appear to have any hair on her chest--as far as
>I can see anyway, but that leaves me wanting to see more.
Knowing that a slight imperfection can add to a woman's allure, a
dark-haired friend of mine maintained the one chest hair she owned.
Even though it happened to be squarely on one of her otherwise-perfect
breasts, she wouldn't let anyone pull it out.
John Holmes
[3 posts when ther should have been only one]
I think I just found a bug in Windows Mail in Vista. When you edit a
message in the Outbox, it still posts the unedited version along with
the edited one.
Hmm, I wonder what other dyshancements they've made since OE.
John Holmes
> Chuck Riggs wrote:
>
>> I particularly enjoyed "Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls' Stomachs" for
>> some reason.
>
> On the other hand, this is why I don't use mnemonics: I find them
> harder to remember accurately than the thing I'm really trying to
> remember.
One of the few mnemonics I have managed to remember is "mnemonic"
itself. It's for the formula for the Poisson distribution, one formula
that I have never needed to remember.
Roland Hutchinson
> On 2 Apr 2009 16:35:13 -0700, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>Roland Hutchinson filted:
>>>
>>>Adam Funk wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2009-04-02, jerry_f...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Apr 2, 9:33Â am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> It seems clear that our ancestors went
>>>>>> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
>>>>>> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
>>>>>> chimpanzees and gorillas  (whether geographically or by
>>>>>> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
>>>>>
>>>>> Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
>>>>> ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
>>>>
>>>> If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
>>>> snobs.
>>>
>>>Which is nothing at all compared to what our forebears likely called the
>>>chimps.
>>
>>There's always the possibility that it was the chimps who decided to break
>>off relations....r
>
> <dodgy science>
> It is quite clear why humans came into existence.
>
> Our shared ancestors were happily living in trees.
>
> One day a female was born with a number of genetic abnormalities. The
> effect of one of these abnormalities was a fear of heights. As soon as
> she became independent of her mother she climbed doewn to the ground and
> stayed there. One or more males took a fancy to her and joined her on
> the ground. Her fear of heights was inherited by her offspring and her
> offspring's offspring. This band of groundling primates developed in
> isolation from their high-living relatives.
> </dodgy science>
Science, schmience: one _always_ does well to keep clear of one's
high-living relatives.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>Chuck Riggs wrote:
>> On 3 Apr 2009 20:46:08 GMT, "John Varela" <OLDl...@verizon.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:20:43 UTC, "CDB" <belle...@sympatico.ca>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
>>> Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Duh.
>>
>> Did the Doctor say that or did you make it up, John?
>
>It was said by the first Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, in the first
>episode in 1963, which I clearly remember watching. She had been
>followed "home" by two of her teachers who then got accidentally whisked
>away to the stone age.
>
Linking a few themes: in _Doctor Who_ the Time Lady Romana was played by
Lalla Ward. It was through her friendship with Douglas Adams
(_Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_) that she met Richard Dawkins who
she married. She has recorded audio books, including "Steven Pinker's
The Language Instinct and Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale and The God
Delusion, in which she co-narrates with her husband".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalla_Ward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams
[Douglas Adams] was a keen technologist, writing about such topics
as e-mail and Usenet before they became widely known.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
James Silverton
>> Chuck wrote on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:25:17 +0100:
>>
>>>> Chuck Riggs wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I particularly enjoyed "Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls'
>>>>> Stomachs" for some reason.
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, this is why I don't use mnemonics: I find them
>>>> harder to remember accurately than the thing I'm really
>>>> trying to remember.
>>
>>> Same here. As a memory back-up, the old pen and paper method
>>> works best for me. Even with the various electronic gadgets
>>> at my disposal, I find a scribbled note to myself is often
>>> the fastest and surest way of retaining information.
>>
>> I don't use mnemonics much but I do remember using one or two
>> as a student. There was the long one for the geological eras
>> and another for the Lanthanide chemical elements.
> With the elements, isn't carrying a card naming them all, or
> buying a proper wall chart of the elements, the best solution?
I guess you missed the qualifier "Lanthanide". I would not have been
allowed to carry any cards into an exam and, as a chemist, I have little
trouble remembering the vertical groups tho' there are mnemonics for
them.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
James Hogg
Years ago I went up to Cambridge, along with another boy from our
school. We had both been active writing and performing in school
revues, and we toyed with the idea of joining Footlights. At the
Societies Fair, however, we chickened out (two lads from the
sticks) and joined the much less pretentious Cambridge University
Light Entertainment Society. CULES wrote and performed revues for
captive audiences such as old people's homes and prisons.
I have only the vaguest recollection of going to see the leader
of CULES in his room at Trinity, and I dropped out after just one
term and one show, forgetting him and even his name.
It was only some thirty years later that I read something which
made me realise that the leader of CULES at the time was Douglas
Adams, who was one year before me. Imagine meeting somebody as
famous as that and forgetting all about it.
--
James
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<my.sp...@verizon.net> wrote:
>Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:
>
>> On 2 Apr 2009 16:35:13 -0700, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Roland Hutchinson filted:
>>>>
>>>>Adam Funk wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2009-04-02, jerry_f...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Apr 2, 9:33 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> It seems clear that our ancestors went
>>>>>>> through a bottleneck and that we're all descended from a single small
>>>>>>> group of individuals who were already reproductively isolated from
>>>>>>> chimpanzees and gorillas (whether geographically or by
>>>>>>> incompatibiility, for example because they have 48 chromosomes).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Possibly humanity began when a sufficiently large number of our
>>>>>> ancestors felt that sex with chimps would be gross.
>>>>>
>>>>> If they had had language back then, the chimps would have called them
>>>>> snobs.
>>>>
>>>>Which is nothing at all compared to what our forebears likely called the
>>>>chimps.
>>>
>>>There's always the possibility that it was the chimps who decided to break
>>>off relations....r
>>
>> <dodgy science>
>> It is quite clear why humans came into existence.
>>
>> Our shared ancestors were happily living in trees.
>>
>> One day a female was born with a number of genetic abnormalities. The
>> effect of one of these abnormalities was a fear of heights. As soon as
>> she became independent of her mother she climbed doewn to the ground and
>> stayed there. One or more males took a fancy to her and joined her on
>> the ground. Her fear of heights was inherited by her offspring and her
>> offspring's offspring. This band of groundling primates developed in
>> isolation from their high-living relatives.
>> </dodgy science>
>
>Science, schmience: one _always_ does well to keep clear of one's
>high-living relatives.
I labelled my little bit of fiction as "dodgy science" because there is
no evidence that that is what happened, but my understanding is that the
sequence of events I described is feasible. Who knows, it might happen
in the future as the genesis of a new species of primate.
the Omrud
> On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:21:07 GMT, the Omrud
> <usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Chuck Riggs wrote:
>>> On 3 Apr 2009 20:46:08 GMT, "John Varela" <OLDl...@verizon.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:20:43 UTC, "CDB" <belle...@sympatico.ca>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Partridge says that "tardis" is of obscure origin:
>>>> Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Duh.
>>> Did the Doctor say that or did you make it up, John?
>> It was said by the first Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, in the first
>> episode in 1963, which I clearly remember watching. She had been
>> followed "home" by two of her teachers who then got accidentally whisked
>> away to the stone age.
>>
> Linking a few themes: in _Doctor Who_ the Time Lady Romana was played by
> Lalla Ward. It was through her friendship with Douglas Adams
> (_Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_) that she met Richard Dawkins who
> she married. She has recorded audio books, including "Steven Pinker's
> The Language Instinct and Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale and The God
> Delusion, in which she co-narrates with her husband".
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalla_Ward
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams
I expect it's mentioned in the WikiP article, but Lalla Ward first
married Tom Baker, a marriage which didn't last long. She's The
Honourable Lalla Ward (actually Sarah Ward), being the daughter of a
viscount.
Douglas Adams was a Doctor Who script writer; about half way through
reading The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, I recognised that the story
had been adapted from one of his own Doctor Who scripts, which slightly
spoiled the ending for me.
--
David