Talk:Caladenia macrostylis

Etymology of "macrostylis"
There is debate about the etymology of "macrostylis". Ali Sharr gives: "macro/ macro- large, long" and "stylis: G -s. having a style: Caladenia." Gderrin (talk) 09:47, 31 October 2019 (UTC)


 * You have stated:
 * "The specific epithet (macrostylis) is derived from the Greek words macro meaning "long", "large" or "great" and stylis, meaning "style", alluding to the broad wings of the column."
 * Where does Sharr state that macro/ macro- are words? Clearly, nor macro nor macro- are Greek words. He translates stylis as having a style. That is not the same as style. It shows that your interpretation of your source is flawed and additionally the etymology of your source is ambiguous. Wimpus (talk) 09:56, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no Greek adjective stylis meaning "having a style". Are you still sure, that this was written without a hyphen? Are you sure, that the etymologies are in each single case correct in Sharr? Wimpus (talk) 10:06, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Gderrin, here you write: " The specific epithet (brevistylis) is derived from Latin brevis meaning "short" and -stylis meaning "having a style", referring to the short style in this species.[3][7]" with a reference to Sharr. Did Sharr made a mistake in explaining macrostylis and forget to write a hyphen, or is the hyphen absent in -stylis for both macrostylis and brevistylis in Sharr? Wimpus (talk) 17:07, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Brown:
 * "Derivation of name: From the Greek macro (long, large, great) and stylus (style), alluding to the broad column wings." (Brown's book is available here.)

Sharr:
 * "macro/ G macro- large, long"
 * "stylis: G -s. having a style: Caladenia"

(Sharr's book is available here.)

Note that in this edit to the article, my last, and an edit that was reverted, macro is not given as a word, and hyphens were included after "macro" and before "stylis". The etymology given was ".... is derived from the Greek macro- meaning "large" or "long", and &#8209;stylis meaning "having a style", alluding to the broad wings of the column. Gderrin (talk) 05:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)


 * So, Brown writes macro and Sharr macro- (with an hyphen). Brown writes stylus and Sharr stylis (both without a hyphen). Brown and Sharr consider both words/word-parts as Greek. In your version, you have included macro- of Sharr, while -stylis with hyphen is absent in both authors. It seems that your are misquoting your sources.
 * And your sources seem to be at odds with other sources, as Stearn indicates that "stylus" is the Botanical Latin form of classical Latin stilus (not a Greek form), while Liddell and Scott indicate that [στυλίς (stylis)] is not an adjective, while Sharr's translation of stylis as "having a style" seems to indicate that it would be an adjective.
 * Can you explain these discrepancies between these sources and between these sources and the etymological part you have written? Wimpus (talk) 13:53, 2 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Please read more careully. Sharr does give a hyphen. The hyphen is omitted in the listing, in order to maintain alphabetical order. The hyphen is indicated "stylis: G -s. having a style". ["G -s" (my emphasis)] The book by Brown (and others) is a field guide - a book for people who are interested in the orchids of Western Australia - not a book about etymology. Nobody has complained about the derivations given and they have been maintained in the subsequent edition. I am not misquoting sources. Gderrin (talk) 21:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that "G -s" indicated a hyphen. Considering your remark: "I am not misquoting sources": I am suggesting that what you wrote on the main page, does not truthfully reflect the content of your sources. Of the five versions you have provided, three, maybe four or even five, are not consistent with their source(s). I am still suprised that you can blatantly deny that something is wrong with your etymological edits. This overview shows that you have repeatedly made etymological mistakes. The first step would be to acknowledge that something went wrong and that your lack of knowledge is hindering you in correctly reading, interpreting and quoting sources for etymological information. The only thing you can do, is to take the advice of the moderator that told you to "get informed"' first seriously, instead of adding distorted etymological information. Wimpus (talk) 10:10, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) The specific epithet (macrostylis) is derived from the Greek words macro meaning 'long', 'large' or 'great' and stylus, 'style' alluding to the broad wings of the column.
 * 2) The specific epithet (macrostylis) is derived from the Greek words macro meaning "long", "large" or "great" and stylis, meaning "style", alluding to the broad wings of the column.
 * 3) The specific epithet (macrostylis) is derived from the Greek macro meaning "long", "large" or "great" and stylis, meaning "style", alluding to the broad wings of the column.
 * 4) The specific epithet (macrostylis) is derived from the Greek macro- meaning "large" or "long", and stylis meaning "having a style", alluding to the broad wings of the column.
 * 5) The specific epithet (macrostylis) is derived from the Greek macro- meaning "large" or "long", and &#8209;stylis meaning "having a style", alluding to the broad wings of the column.
 * Version 1 indicates that macro and stylus are Greek words. The word "words" is not mentioned by the source and anyone with some basic knowledge about Greek, would know that macro is not a word in ancient Greek (and would also know that words on -us can also not be Greek).
 * Version 2 indicates that stylis is a word meaning "style". Only -stylis can be found in Sharr with a hyphen and that is not translated with "style".
 * Version 3 indicates that stylis means "style", while only -stylis can be found in Sharr with a hyphen and that is not translated with "style".
 * Version 4 indicates that stylis means "having a style", but the hyphen is missing.
 * Version 5 might be consistent with Sharr, but it is not consistent with Brown.