Il giorno 21/giu/08, alle ore 00:00, David Ehrlich ha scritto: > What is the correct spelling for Calochortus caeruleus/coeruleus? > Wikipedia claims that coer… is an incorrect spelling and that it > should be caer…. The Gerritsen & Parsons book spells it coer…, and > makes no mention of an alternate (or incorrect) spelling. The > Jepson Manual also uses coer…., but IPNI uses caer…. Calflora > spells it coer…, but directs you to Calphotos where it is spelled > caer…. the correct spelling is no doubt COERULEUS !!!! > > I guess this is an example of historic confusion: the ligatured > diphthongs oe and ae look pretty much alike. When the diphthong oe > appears in Latin, it is frequently derived from oi in a Greek word, > e.g. coelestis from the Greek root koilos meaning concave or > hollow. Caeruleus is a Latin word meaning (dark) blue. Coeruleus > makes no sense – it is an evident misspelling of caeruleus. So, > the question is: who made the first misspelling? If it was > Kellogg, should it have been corrected, or should the misspelling > be perpetuated? There should be some rules of Nomenclature to > guide us here. > David Ehrlich the confusion is coming from far/ old times when the diphtongs COE and CAE had the same translation in Italian ( vulgaris latin ) and other latin languages : CE we read it " cae " , returning back to latin somebody wrote CAE and someone else wrote COE , the Church also makes confusion with the word CAELUM ( sky ) in REGINA CAELI we often find written REGINA COELI , not only in Italy but you may find the mistake in Paris and in England too ( google search: Regina Coeli Parish, http://www.reginacoeli.org/ ) the jail in rome is written Regina Coeli.... Casa circondariale di Roma Regina Coeli, the mistake for CAERULEUS ( better to translate with grey/blu ) may also be found in Medicine: Locus Caerulus in the brain is often written Coeruleus, more, in some fishes names we find Coeruleus ( google search Image for Acanthurus coeruleus....) I fear we cannot change this even with a great battle ( useful?) tantum debui Giorgio Pozzi Tavedona (Varese) Italy zone 7/8 studio.pozzitaubert@tiscali.it