Laudator Temporis Acti

Richard Fortey, Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), pp. 150-151:

A new species has to have a new second name—the specific name. Long years of tradition (shortly to be brought to an end) have set up rules about the classical form of species name. It has to be derived from the Greek or Latin root of the appropriate word, so, for example, a beautiful species could be christened pulcher, or even pulcherrima if it was very beautiful indeed (from the Latin). It could not be verypretti, or jolliattractivi (from the vernacular). Rosa pulcherrima would be quite in order. Rosa pulcherrimus would not, because the endings of the genus and species are supposed to agree in gender—it is a matter of euphonious sound, if nothing else. I have always rather liked this adherence to classical roots, if only because it serves to link me with the pioneer taxonomists of the eighteenth century, who wrote in Latin and probably thought in it. This much I share with the great John Ray and the incomparable Carolus Linnaeus (or Karl von Linné, to delatinize him). We are all linked through the great endeavour of classifying the natural world; across more than two hundred years we share the same passion for ordering our knowledge. I actually rather relish trawling through heavy old dictionaries compiled by learned classicists (I have Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary in front of me as I write) to look up the word for, say, “blushing,” or “warty,” to attach it to a species, and I love to read the quotes from Ovid that justify the usage. This adherence to a past classical culture is a bond, not a bondage.