....paucity of gender in it's species as well as it's languages.

One of the things I was doing here was trying to clarify in my mind the
rules of Latin grammar that would help me identify when a binomial was
spelled correctly. The seemingly odd spelling of Phrag fisheri and others
with only one -i started me searching around. What was it about all those
names with a single -i ending that caused it to be different from all
the -ii endings and how would I know when I was looking at a correctly
written one? The more I read, the more I realized that these grammar rules
were very helpful in teaching me to see what the binomial was telling me
about the plant being named. Commemorative epithets are just scratching the
surface, but are a good starting point. There are lots of little clues in
the suffixes themselves.

That the gender endings of specific names in the binomial are determined by
the
gender of the generic names, and that we are dealing with three
genders and apparently several variations on suffixes seemed important to
point out to any interested parties that did not already know it. I
regularly find myself writing species binomials and the internet is even
more full of errors than my orchid books, so it just seemed important to
familiarize myself with these rules so I could more easily see when I was
looking at an incorrect spelling. Proof reading English text is hard
enough...

-ense, -ensis, -icus, -ica tacked onto the end of the specific name tells
you it comes from whatever place is mentioned in the first part of the word.
For instance Paraphalaenopsis labukense tells you that this species comes
from someplace called Labuk (The bay of Labuk is in Malaysia).

However, if you have noticed -ense and ensis have to be among the most
misspeeeld parts of the Latin binomial you would have to know which gender
ending of this suffix matches the gender of the word Paraphalaenopsis to
know if I am messing with your mind or if I spelled correctly. A quick
search of the internet will only confirm that lots of people are confused
about gender on your planet. It seems, grammatically speaking anyway, two
genders
is one too many.

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
Eric, Al is a space alien and is remarking on the paucity of genders on
this
planet. Use of string theory can correct that, as (probably) has been
done
elsewhere in this universe, posibly in the others as well.

K Barrett

"Eric Hunt" wrote in message
...
Al,

Most romance languages, based on Latin, have male, female, and neuter
genders.

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

"Al" wrote in message
...
I notice that nobody thought it odd enough to comment on the fact that
there appear to be only three genders in Latin.