Daily Sceptic- The Politicisation of Plants
The first step concerns the word caffra. It is a common suffix in some plants, such as Erythrina caffra. From now on caffra will be replaced by affra, so that Erythrina caffra will be known as Erythrina affra. This is because caffra is a bad word, alluding to an Arabic word for ‘infidel’ (which at some point was adopted as a racial term in South Africa), while affra is a good word, alluding to Africa. If that was the first step, then the second step is that the nomenclature session also decided that a committee will be created to consider the names of plants associated with controversial figures from the past: though this will only apply to plants named after 2026, and therefore not reach as far as renaming plants which were originally named for slave traders or despots.
No one cares about a stupid plant
Why work their way through the Latin?
Just ban white oak, white pine, black walnut, black maple, etc.
You know they’re going there as soon as they’ve fixed Latin.
But I’m betting that Pussy Willow will stay … at least in Canada.
Cat tails, soft wind and roses!
why such an absurd initiative? garnering favour in the plant kingdom?
next step to *become* ‘one with the plants’?
whallll bys!! ye be ‘alfways dere. congrats!!!
Maybe they could rename some flowers for African tyrants, such as Idi Amin, Mobuto Sese Seko or Francisco Nguema.
The only flowers I want at my funeral are
Wydontcha blowmi
It would seem that someone peered over the fence towards the Ornithological Society and exclaimed…”Hey, they’re doing something that’s complete nonsense over there. We should too.”
You may recall a couple years ago the American Ornithological Society started renaming birds so they didn’t include anyone’s name (you know, like the guy who discovered the freakin bird). IMO, this is the same nonsense that is reflected when they tear down statues. It’s a bunch of malcontent average individuals who want to live up to the times where their parents inadvertently and incorrectly told them they were special (in a non-special Ed. type of way).
Kaffir, the correct South African slang/slur is “Kaffir”, which, ironicly, is stolen from Arabic Kafir: Non-believer.
The term Kaiffirboetie (Kaffir Lover) is actually banned, as hate speech and is punishable by law. Yes, another non-freedom of speech..
I fully expect that Astro is next. Take Halley’s Comet, for example. It’s been observed since 240 BC. Edmond Halley was the first to use trajectory and identical orbiting to determine it was the same comet returning every 70+ years or so. But, that will mean nothing when some ignoramus tries to earn virtue points by stating some guy with more melanin in his skin content saw that comet (or as he probably thought, the “sky god”) back when people were eating roots and dirt for dinner.
They’ll get around to renaming that eventually, so as not to give any due credit to that white European colonialist.
“A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus Pinus.”
Wiki
“Pinus”
Great horrors!
Junglans nigra is black walnut, which will be renamed “Gayest Tree Ever” and latin will be replaced with whatever some fetal alcohol Indian chick on welfare say’s she remembered her grandmother used to say.
You racist.
A lot of plants with caffra as the species name com from what used to be known as British Caffraria and natural limit on the westwards expansion of Bantu tribes along the southern coast of South Africa because their agriculture was limited to summer rainfall crops, now part of the Eastern Cape