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Fri 27 Jun, 2014 10:04 pm
Passenger pigeon? Yes, it is too easy to be forgotten.
Ectopistes migratorius? No, it is too difficult to remember.
Context:
John James Audubon knew birds. As part of what he called his 'frenzy' for avians, the French-American naturalist attempted to survey and document in drawings all the native bird species of North America. And it is Audubon who in 1833 identified the passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, as the most numerous bird on the continent, highlighting the point by describing a mile-wide flock of migrating pigeons that passed over his head and blocked the sun for three straight days.
@oristarA,
I venture to guess that remembering such words usually gives you native speakers a hard time.
Yep.
How do you all deal with scientific nomenclature?