"Oh Give Me a Home..."

 









... where the who? ... the what? ... Yes, where the "buffalo" roam.

Apparently some people have a problem with this song. Okay, not really the song, but they lyrics. That's the song, right? Anyway, see these guys in the picture. They're buffalo. Or are they? Technically Bison bison to the scientific world. To the average North American, however, this is a Buffalo. So where did this misnomer start? Who knows? I'm ceratainly not looking it up for the sake of this blog. Let's just say it's been around for quite some time. As this is true, someone says, "Mommy, look at the Buffalo", everyone turns around expecting to see a large beautiful brown wooly animal. No one turns around expecting to see the true Buffalo, the Water Buffalo (what an ugly creature). I mean, do we even have those over here on our continent? I kind of doubt it. So yes bison = buffalo and buffalo = bison, if you're speakin' Amerrican (which, ya well, most of us are, whether we want to admit to it or not).

Okay, so they're not really equal, but the point is there's nothing lost in the translation. We're all on the same page here. So before we go claiming all the museums and songs should have to change their nomenclature, let's think about this. Which sounds cooler? Buffalo, definitely. Besides, what would we be then, the Colorado Bison? It just sounds so technical, so unequivocal. I propose, as long as we can keep the Cleveland Indians, we can certainly keep the CU Buffalo. Go Ralphie! Which if you want to get into even larger issues. Ya, Ralphie. Not so much a "Ralphie". Not even a Ralph. What am I talking about you ask? Our bison, our buffalo, only the largest event, well, in my opinion at least, at the football games, is ... can you take this? a Girl! Clearly we have more issues going on that whether or not a bison can be called a buffalo, even if we know it's really technically not one.

This is just one example of how scientific language is different from local language. It is true the differences between scientific names and common names can be quite confusing, much more than the buffalo/bison issue. Here are two others for you to hem and haw about, the dolphin fish and the mosquito eater. The dolphin fish or sometimes even just called dolphin (which can be quite confusing if you're unfamiliar with this local terminology and you see it on a menu), is otherwise known as mahi mahi or scientifically as Coryphaena hippurus. The commonly named Mosquito Eater (Family: Tipulidae) in the US, which not only does not eat mosquitoes, but is also known as a Crane Fly or a Daddy Long Legs in the UK. A Daddy Long Legs in the US is in fact a spider (Family: Pholcidae). Interestingly enough, both of which seem to seek haven in my apartment. Other miscommunications arise when two different things have the same common name in different locations, which also occurs more often than you would think.

Broader problems come in to play when the common name for a whole class is completely erroneous, such as the starfish. Although they are actually shaped like a star, they're not even a fish, try echinoderm (yes, I have been schooled in the ways of Biology, as if you couldn't tell already). As this has caused quite a commotion, there is a movement to change the common name to "sea star", like that is easy to do. We struggle with this name issue everywhere. The largest in my specialty (chemistry) is that whole Molecular Weight thing. If you went to school anytime around when I did or before, you know what I am talking about. However, this is one of the most erroneous names out there. There are once again, some bright bold people trying to change this term to one that is more accurately descriptive of the actual definition, and it has even been corrected in some of the newer textbooks to the more accurately named new term: Molecular Mass. Now, why has it taken hundreds of years for us to change the term for the mass (yes, Mass!) of a molecule to an actual name of mass and not weight. Anyone who has studied physics knows these terms are not even close to being equivocal.

To end my name game, I have one thing to say. A name is nothing but a means to communicate with someone else. If the reciever of your name-calling is privy to the naming technique to which you are using, you have achieved communication. If not, well then, maybe you need to resort to the scientific language, but until then, I'm going to common it up as I've heard I'm not the only one who's a little rusty with the Latin.