In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley writes:
|
| I put quotes round the species names so that only cases where the words
| occur in sequence come up; you've looked for pages contain both words,
| not necessarily in sequence, so would have found pages referring to
| Viburnum species-X and Genus-Y fragrans.

Oops. Yes. I am not sure that it proves what it seems to, from the
first few pages of hits. Web page counts are very biassed towards
organisations that produce Web pages, and there are far more hits of
an academic botanic nature than of a horticultural one. What was the
average number of readers of an academic paper again?[*] But I assert
that there are more horticultural references to that species than
strictly botanic ones.

But, even allowing for that, it does seem likely that the balance has
definitely shifted (and probably did about 20 years back), which is a
strong argument that changing back again now would do more harm than
good!

[*] To non-academics, one survey found it was 3. Including the
referees! I can't remember which field or where that was published.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.