Racist plant names will change after historic vote by botanists

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02365-x

by XzetaU8 • 2 years ago

30 32 2 years ago

nature.com

zoklet-enjoyer• 2 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaffir_(racial_...

kylebenzle• 2 years ago

Thank you! After reading the article that was my next question!

JumpCrisscross• 2 years ago

Is the Kaffir lime [1] affected? It's a homonym.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime

giraffe_lady2• 2 years ago

I was a working cook back then and we switched to makrut lime in like 2006. Line cooks not known particularly for delicate language or sensitivity fwiw.

IvyMike• 2 years ago

In my foodie circles I hear makrut lime more often.

pfannkuchen• 2 years ago

I’m curious which direction the etymology goes. Often what starts out as an innocuous descriptive word gets negatively charged over time, for example “retard”.

Were the plants really named after a word for nonbelievers? Or is there a common root for both. For example if it started as a regional term it could have evolved into a slur.

I’m not opposed to the change, I just find it interesting/amusing from a cultural perspective if the euphemism treadmill is now extending to plants.

pvaldes6• 2 years ago

South Park nailed it. Once you open this door all is an endless road of somebody, somewhere, feeling outraged by something, and demanding to be changed.

In the end the goal seems to destroy one of the few things that we still agreed to do collectively as human species. Using an universal way to name the creatures that live in the planet.

The same species will have different Scientific names for suiting the preferences of Chinese, USA, Brazilians or Russians. After all, it isn't "racist" not being able to use the Chinese alphabet on scientific names?

Scientists will be automatically tagged as belonging to ideology or political party by the names that they will choose to enforce.

Countries with republics will try to wipe names honoring the kings of monarchies that patronage the scientific expeditions.

They don't even understand, or even worse don't care, about the precedent that they are setting.

viburnum• 2 years ago

Plant names are changing constantly anyway so this is not a big deal, just a nice thing to do.

pvaldes6• 2 years ago

We could also rename Harry Potter to Harry Clerk, to avoid the nasty racism of the producers of China Pottery.

Without asking J.K. what thinks about it of course. The opinion of the scientists that choose Erythrina caffra instead the much more acceptable "Soylent bland", does not matter anymore.

jrflowers• 2 years ago

We could also rename Harry Potter to Harry Clerk

Hell yeah why not

kazinator5• 2 years ago

Hirsute Ceramist

ramon156• 2 years ago

I barely know any plant names, so I'll happily agree and forget about it ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

pvaldes6• 2 years ago

Being blind to most of your surroundings is very sad. Can I suggest you to start with the interesting genus Ramonda?

listless2• 2 years ago

I researched this a bit and it looks like the actual slur is "Kaffir", which is also spelled "Cafri" and comes from the Muslim term for "non-believer". And somehow this word was chosen to be used as a slur and is considered highly offensive in South Africa. As an American, I'll draw a similarity with the "N" word.

But is the plant name racist in the sense that when they named it, they were picking the slur purposefully? Or does the word simply _sound_ like the slur?

Even the latter can be enough if you consider what it would be like if name had the "N" word - or even something that had the same sound. You would literally be unable to use the plant name out loud. But it would be important for publications covering this to not call it a "racist plant name" as that really depends on how the name was given.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_(racial_term)?useskin=v...

microtherion• 2 years ago

A few years ago, I stumbled across a technical term in old patent filings that I'm pretty sure has been replaced by now: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/62/28/01/cdb0d1c...

s1artibartfast• 2 years ago

Im not sure that one is unrelated to the offensive term.

RichardCA• 2 years ago

The mechanism in a steam-driven sawmill that holds the log in place and is adjusted when the angle or thickness of the cut needs to be changed.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/542122/origin-of...

jimmaswell• 2 years ago

We don't seem to care about soundalikes in other contexts like "chink in your armor" or "spick and span", so why go after obscure plant names that sound vaguely like obscure slurs in obscure languages if you squint your ears real hard? Maybe someone had a paucity of productive work to do so they came up with this project others couldn't criticize out loud without getting canceled?

kazinator5• 2 years ago

For values of "we" denoting "normal, non-woke people"; yes.

Ordinary words in one language can sound like foul words or slurs in another language.

People who can't accept this are not yet adults emotionally.

Funny story: decades ago, I was riding a bus with a friend; we were conversing in a language in which the word fact sounds a lot like fucked, with an unvoiced d. Some old lady was giving us dirty looks. Yes, silly hag, we did not suffer a pointless vowel shift in our language; all the Latin-derived stuff (that also forms the basis of a lot of English) sounds close to the original!

listless2• 2 years ago

But neither “chink” nor “spick” is even remotely as offensive as the N word. The fact that I won’t even use the word but I will use the other 2 is proof. I don’t think you would use the word either. If we assume that we’re dealing with a word of that caliber for South Africans, it’s understandable why they want it changed.

We could have an argument about whether we should even have words that have this kind of “Voldemort” power in our vocabulary, but at present we ascribe a lot of power to these words.

kazinator5• 2 years ago

Kefir is pretty close to kaffir, LOL.

I vote to rename kefir to "that sour drink formerly offensive to muslims".

kazinator5• 2 years ago

If you've never heard of "caffra", you're not woke enough for this; just snooze your alarm and go back to sleep.

porkbeer• 2 years ago

Can you explain how this comment? Many people avoid racism as a matter of course, and this seems rather niche at that. Are you suggesting not knowing a slur is itself racist?

kazinator5• 2 years ago

I'm saying you're not properly woke if you don't study and memorize the entire catalog of racist slurs in all the world's languages, and point out anything that is remotely similar.

Racist plant names will change after historic vote by botanists

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