Gender of genus Pseudoon

[David Campbell]

Simpson (1900) named Pseudoon without an etymology, as a subgenus. He used an umlaut on the second o, suggesting that the final -on is added to pseudo-.  https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32021246#page/659/mode/1up

Searching online suggests that -on is likely to be a Greek masculine ending, but nothing more definite is turning up so far.  Any insights?

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Dr. David Campbell

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[Richard Littauer]

I would argue that the gender of this subgenus is indeterminate. I would suggest using whatever has been general practice for now, and making a Case to the commission about it. If you want a general hand-wave gender to use, I think the best bet is masculine. 

The original incorrect spelling is Pseudoön. Under 32.5.2.1, the diaresis is deleted, as this word is clearly not German in origin. I don't see any way that this mark could be considered an umlaut; it's clearly not Germanic (or any other language except Greek). It's much more likely (in my mind) to have been used as a term to show that ön is a separate word and pronunciation from the first ending -o. I can't think of any other instances where an ending is applied with a diaresis like this. This makes ön likely to be a word in its own right, and it's likely to be either ὤν (masculine) or ὄν (neuter), participles meaning 'being'. I can't find instances in dictionaries of these being substantivized, but it really doesn't matter much - they're valid Greek words, and they won't change ending as they're generic and not specific. Both of these Greek words could be transliterated as on into the Latin alphabet. There's no clauses in Article 30 that say what to do if a final word is Greek and can be interpreted as either masculine or neuter - it does mention "common" or "variable", but then limits that to masculine or feminine, which is unhelpful here. The language has to be interpreted as Latin or Greek under Article 26, so Article 30.2 can never apply, which would say that anything ending in -on is neuter. 

The spirit of Article 30.1 is that names which are unclear default to masculine. I don't like using the spirit of the law as a reason for clarifying gender, at all, but that's probably the easiest route if you need a short answer. If people have been treating it as neuter, use that.  

Article 78.2.2 mentions that sometimes the Code requires authors to refer to the Commission for how to interpret a particular case. I think this would be a good candidate for that. It's a very easy Case to make and shouldn't take Commissioners a bunch of time to work through, as it doesn't have a ton of cruft for Commissions to read through to understand the issue. 

R

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[David Campbell]

Thank you.  No prevailing usage exists; it's a subjective synonym but molecular data suggest that it may be useful after all.  

[Laurent Raty]

I'd make this ψευδ-, false- + ᾠόν, egg, cf. "Shell elliptical, inflated,
solid, that of the males slightly pointed at the upper posterior part".
Therefore neuter.

The same diaeresis was formerly used in English in words derived from
ᾠόν - e.g., "oölogy".

Laurent -

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[Richard Littauer]

Ah. Yes, that makes more sense! Neuter is a better fit. 

Laurent: what do you think about ᾠόν being transliterated without the iota? Shouldn't this be oion in the Roman alphabet? Some dictionaries mention that this is occasionally written without the small iota, so I think it still works for the Code, but it is awkward. 

R

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