Taxonomy – a True Story (nothing to do with the Inland Revenue)

There was a guy who decided to name everything. He had his own name, so he didn’t actually name everything because his parents had already called him Carl Linnaeus. Cruel I know, but it was nothing compared to what he did.

Carl, rather like some people who write blogs, was obsessed with sex. So, rather like some people who write blogs, he decided to base all his naming stuff on sex. Here’s how it went:

He classified all the everything according to the number of male sexual organs it had. This worked ok for plants (he was very interested in plants) but fell down rather when it came to everything else. He therefore named everything else ‘notus plantus’. I should have mentioned that Latin was his naming language of choice.

Now, although counting willies worked well as far as it went it didn’t go far enough. (Willies sometimes have that problem). So he had to count female sexual organs as well. This is what happened:

A Lily was called ‘six blokes with one girl’
A Tulip Tree was named ‘at least twenty gay chaps’
And a Marigold was ‘a couple of guys with eversomany women’

It never caught on, although I consider an enchanting method of naming plants.

So he tried again. (By the way, this is a true story stolen directly from ‘The Garden’ Magazine, a fascinating periodical we should all read). This time he decided to give everything a first name and a last name. Thus ‘notus plantus’ became ‘notus plantus’ and Marigolds became Marigold reallyveryorangus. The surname is a clue to what sort of plant it is. Strangely this did catch on. Now it is totally socially acceptable to have a surname that describes what sort of plant you are. Famous examples include Cardinal Sin (former Archbishop of Manila), S. Marc Breedlove, who wrote on sexual dimorphism (whatever that is) and Kevin DeCock (director of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organisation). This is true. Stolen directly from the New Scientist (another fascinating periodical we should all read).

So, my suggestion is, in line with the universal method of naming plants, we should all rename ourselves. I am now called Cecilia Mygodwhatthehellisshegoingonabout.