Re: [edict-jmdict] Best practice for taxon entries

[Jim Breen <jimbreen@*********>]

On 23 March 2012 13:31, marcus_marukusu <superbrightfuture@gmail.com> wrote:
> What would the ideal entry for taxonomical families, orders, genera, etc. look like? I think there's quite a discrepancy among the current entries, and I'm not sure which format is the best.

Thank, Marcus, for raising this. I was about to post about it as well.

> For families, most current entries provide an explanation of some kind, but there are also those who are just the Latin name. Some examples, all containing different level of information, and slightly different formatting:
>
> "Siganidae (family of fishes known as rabbitfishes, spinefoots and foxfaces)"
> "Hexagrammidae (family of marine fishes incorporating the greenlings)"
> "Chenopodiaceae (plant family)"
> "Luvaridae (family containing 1 extant species of perciform fish similar to a surgeonfish)"
> "Orectolobidae (family containing 11 species in 3 genera of carpet sharks known as wobbegongs)"
> "Ebenaceae (plant family); ebony"
> "Canidae"

Ideally we need more than the Latin name, and the best would be to
have "xxxx family" or "family of xxxx" in parentheses after the
name with some additional explanation if appropriate. I prefer
"family of xxxx", but I'd be interested to hear other views.

> For orders, it seems at a quick glance like maybe more than half have explanations, while the rest are just the latin name, while for genera, most entries seem to have an explanation.

Yes the XXX属 are pretty consistent (they mostly came from one
person.)

How about the following as a guide:

XXXX属 ..... Latin_name (genus of YYYYY [in the family ZZZZ] [other
useful info])

AAAAA科 ..... Latin_name (family of BBBB [other useful info])

PPPPP目 ..... Latin_name (order of QQQQ [other useful info])

Will that work? Feedback, please. Once we have an agreed
view I'll add it to the guidelines.

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Clayton School of IT, Monash University
Webmaster: Hawthorn Rowing Club, Treasurer: Japanese Studies Centre
Graduate student: Language Technology Group, University of Melbourne