The "common-ness" of a common noun falls away when it refers to something specific. Say what you will about common nouns, but there's nothing common about Common Goldeneye: the uncommon combination of those words means the author wasn't referring to some common goldeneye but a Common Goldeneye, an uncommon bird among all birds but one distinct from - and more common than - the uncommon Barrow's Goldeneye. So, while the words Eastern Bluebird refer to a unique species, they don't refer to a unique bird, and it should be just eastern bluebird. The argument is that, basically, the common name of a bird species is not capitalized because there are lots of individuals of that bird. To a scientist, though, treating species not as icons but as data (or, more likely, with a much better understanding of the muddy fluidity that is the "species" concept), or to a layperson, who couldn't give a crap either way, the common name is meaningless, unworthy of extra typeface.Īn English professor would explain that the difference is common vs. To cast that combination of words back among the unwashed lower-case, then, is to rob it of its magic. (Sometimes even capital letters at the start of the words aren't enough, and we distinguish species in bold or in all-caps.) To us, the combination of words creating a species' common name is the carrier of meaning, it's the it, it creates - quite literally - a proper noun. Our lists are built by species one-by-one the Carolina Chickadee only counts once no matter how many individuals you've seen. Field guides are divided into species, each one seeming to be its own separate brick - distinct but accommodating - in the birdlife structure. It also strikes me - as a birder - as disrespectful. It's unnecessarily confusing - does "I saw a yellow warbler" mean you saw the species Setophaga petechiaor that you saw a warbler of the color yellow, like a Prothonotary or Pine Warbler? All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only.It's always bothered me that most media outlets don't capitalize the common names of birds. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. Some defensive statistics Copyright © Baseball Info Solutions, 2010-2022. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith.įull-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. THE REFERENCE MINER EGRET FREEMuch of the play-by-play, game results, and transaction information both shown and used to create certain data sets was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet. THE REFERENCE MINER EGRET LICENSEUse without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Logos were compiled by the amazing .Ĭopyright © 2000-2022 Sports Reference LLC. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. We present them here for purely educational purposes. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC.
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