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Rusty Hinge[_2_] · 10-03-2010, 08:42 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote:
In article ,
Rusty Hinge wrote:
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message , Derek Turner
writes
On Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:03:31 -0600, seeker wrote:

Any cures for marestail weed ?
AIUI marestail (Hippuris vulgaris) is aquatic. Do you mean horsetail
(Equisetum)?
He does mean horsetail (Equisetum). However, marestail is used for at
least three plants (the 3rd is Canadian fleabane), and the use for
Equisetum is widespread.
Yes, but totally incorrectly. (Just as glasswort is widely called
'samphire', ramsons are called 'wild garlic', and pelargoniums are
called 'geraniums'.)

Even in ye olden dayes when I was a lad, people thought glasswort was
called samphire. Fortunately, I was correted (1953) by someone who
showed me what samphire really looked like. (Yum! If anything, it's
better thn glasswort, which I adore too...)

Not at all. The English language is defined by its users, and not
by a any official body.

No it ain't not nohow geez like innit.

In particular, the self-selected and
dogmatic English botanists who tried to define 'official' English
names can get knotted. They even tried to claim that bluebell
was a synonym for Campanula rotundifolia!

Bluebell by ancient tradition is in England the 'wild' hyacinth and in
Scotland, what in England is called a harebell.

In particular, some names specify multiple species simultaneously,
others vary with location, some specify varieties or subspecies,
and some overlap those. English is imprecise. Live with it.

Often, too often, English is modified by the illiterate and the
ignorant. I shall not live with it - I shal live despite it.

Marestail and samphire are fine. If you want to be specifically
precise, use the proper language, which is Latin.

Proper?

--
Rusty