# Spelling?



## LadySlipper (Mar 8, 2019)

How long did it take you to learn how to spell the proper names of the all beautiful orchids and other flowers I see on the forum? I'm impressed with the flowers (all of them), but even more so with the spectacular spelling of their names.

So, how long did it take you?


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## mrhappyrotter (Mar 8, 2019)

One thing that can be helpful is with time you start to see the patterns in how names are latinized. And if you spend time with and around other orchid people (or watch videos of orchid people) pronouncing the names, it helps with spelling since latin names are usually pretty consistent and phonetic.

I think it also helps to be young. 10 - 15 years ago I could remember how to spell everything quite well. Now, I end up doing a quick search to confirm the spelling (which is easier to do on the desktop) and sometimes even then I get it wrong. Also, adding the names to the browser spell check makes a difference.

Even then, I still struggle with common stuff. I have about a 50/50 chance of spelling philippinense right and it's one of my favorite Paph species.


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## Linus_Cello (Mar 8, 2019)

Don’t bother. There will be a taxonomic revision by the time you master the spelling


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## xiphius (Mar 9, 2019)

Spelling is overrated. That's what google is for. 

That said, I am actually decent at remembering the spelling for most of the common genera and species I grow... pronunciation is another matter entirely! I have heard them pronounced almost as many ways as I have seen them (mis)spelled!


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## Tom-DE (Mar 9, 2019)

Orchid name spelling is important. If spelling is wrong, it would not pop up on your google search or the search here. I would encourage people to spell out the full name(genus name and the species name, O/C also the hybrid) especially on the thread title.
Responsible hobbyists/forum members should/would post correct information(names, growing advice....) on public forum, not a bunch of BS to get attention. If you can't remember the spelling, take a look at the plant label it came with(most of time, the spelling on it is right) and copy it down...that is easy, isn't it? If you're still in doubt about the spelling, check it out on some free reputable websites, like IOSPE(International Orchid Species Encyclopedia).
Old names are okay to me and many people. They seem to remember the old genus name better.(I am not trying to have a discussion on name changes)....maybe it is just me, people don't even spell out words half of the time these days.

@ the question: Most of people don't remember the spelling half of the time especially if you have a large collection of orchids. With so many species and hybrids in the orchid kingdom, IMO, posting with a correctly spelled name and useful correct information is a right/responsible thing to do, and try to differentiate species and hybrid also.... my two cents, that's all.


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## LadySlipper (Mar 9, 2019)

Interesting posts about spelling. I can understand it being important so you can google search, but sometimes the spelling is what you need google or in olden days, a dictionary for.

I just see all these beautiful long words that tell me beautiful flowers are around. It is impressive. 

And neat trick to look on the flower’s name on the pot. 

Any other comments about spelling these names?


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## Tom-DE (Mar 9, 2019)

It takes time to learn orchids. If you are really into it, you may learn the names faster. While I was actively growing orchids(over 30+ years), I remembered a lot of them but now, I don't even remember half of them... (just in 3+ short years). I will have to look it up and make sure the spelling......

As I said before I edited my post. "As time goes by, we all will learn...As time goes by, we also will forget."


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## Ray (Mar 10, 2019)

This _might_ help.


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## LadySlipper (Mar 10, 2019)

Ray said:


> This _might_ help.



Nice page of explaining. Thanks. I hope it can help someone else too.


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## southernbelle (Mar 11, 2019)

xiphius said:


> Spelling is overrated. That's what google is for.
> 
> That said, I am actually decent at remembering the spelling for most of the common genera and species I grow... pronunciation is another matter entirely! I have heard them pronounced almost as many ways as I have seen them (mis)spelled!


AOS gives pronunciations in the front of Orchids magazine and on each of their culture pages. I just go with that. The thing I most often here mispronounced is cattleya. I’ve heard kat-l-AY-ah, kat-LAY-ah; etc. AOS says KAT-lee-ah, so I use that.


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## xiphius (Mar 11, 2019)

I agree that spelling the name correctly is important. What I was getting at is that it is not important to _remember_ the spelling yourself since it is easy to look up when you need it. Even if I am sure of how something is spelled, I almost always end up second-guessing myself and looking it up anyways. Then I am pleasantly surprised when I turn out to be right .



Tom-DE said:


> Orchid name spelling is important. *If spelling is wrong, it would not pop up on your google search or the search here.* I would encourage people to spell out the full name(genus name and the species name, O/C also the hybrid) especially on the thread title.



Frankly, the google comment is inaccurate (or at least outdated). You can totally misspell an orchid name in google and most of the time it will still pop up with the right thing. Google has gotten really good at "guessing" what you actually meant. As long as you are vaguely in the ballpark with the spelling, it can generally figure it out. Sometimes it is almost scary good.



Tom-DE said:


> Responsible hobbyists/forum members should/would post correct information(names, growing advice....) on public forum, not a bunch of BS to get attention. *If you can't remember the spelling, take a look at the plant label it came with(most of time, the spelling on it is right) and copy it down...that is easy, isn't it?* If you're still in doubt about the spelling, check it out on some free reputable websites, like IOSPE(International Orchid Species Encyclopedia).



I agree that it is responsible to be careful when labeling your plants. But be very careful here with nursery tags. I have found quite a few nursery tags with pretty blatant misspellings (ideally this wouldn't be the case, but we don't live in an ideal world). I would double check the tag against reputable internet sources (or literature sources) before blindly trusting it. I never assume that the nursery tag has the correct spelling, especially if it is a genera or species I am unfamiliar with.


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## xiphius (Mar 11, 2019)

Case and point, I thought this would be a fun example. A search for a severe misspelling of "Paphiopedilum" still gives the correct result. Hardly scientific, but it demonstrates my point. I didn't even include the word "orchid" to give it additional context. However, this might be somewhat biased since I have previously searched for "Paphiopedilum" (spelled correctly) and spend a lot of time googling various orchids. So google may be extrapolating based on my personal history. I have no idea how the google algorithm actually works, only that it seems to be _very _good at guesstimating.


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## LadySlipper (Mar 11, 2019)

This being very interesting and informative.


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## Tom-DE (Mar 11, 2019)

@ xiphius, What you said about google search is true for the most part, however if you put in a full correct name, the results might be more informative and useful, and it may eliminate some "unnecessary" results ....also in forums, if the title is so "creative", for example, "Look at my beautiful slippers!", Such thread wouldn't pop up on search result of "Paphiopedilum". For another example: if the title just includes the species name(not a full name), the search results(for a specific plant) may not include such a post either.
@the plant label, "most" of the spellings on the labels are correct(did I said "most of the time"?)... however, misspelled labels(Not talking about misidentified plants) do happen from time to time, especially the plants are from some backyard growers/breeders...and that is why I said early, if you're still in doubt, check the label/spelling on some reputable websites(as you also mentioned the same thing).....


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## xiphius (Mar 11, 2019)

Tom-DE said:


> @ xiphius, What you said about google search is true for the most part, however if you put in a full correct name, the results might be more informative and useful and it may eliminate some "unnecessary" results ....also in forums, if the title is so "creative", for example, "Look at my beautiful slippers!", Such thread wouldn't pop up on search result of "Paphiopedilum". For another example: if the title just includes the species name(not a full name), the search results(for a specific plant) may not include such a post either.



Absolutely correct. I was never saying that you should _just _search for the incorrect name. I was saying that you can use Google to determine the correct spelling of the name even if you have basically no idea how it should be spelled to begin with (and thus you don't have to remember how names are spelled). From there, you can copy the correct spelling onto your plant tags or c/p the correct spelling back into Google and/or Slippertalk and get relevant results. Of course you want to use the correctly spelled name when searching for info, but first you have to determine what that spelling is.

As an illustrative example, let's make up a scenario - let's say I buy a plant of Paphiopedilum delenatii. Let's say I am new to orchids and have no idea about nomenclature. Let's further say that the plant either didn't have a tag, or that the tag got lost soon after I bought it. Oh no! Now I want to look it up to try and get some cultural information, but I cannot remember for the life of me how it was spelled. I do vaguely remember the vendor mentioning the name when I bought it though. How can I figure out how to spell the name so I can look up more specific info on it? Let's turn to Google.

If I remember hearing the name, then it is a reasonable start to try spelling in phonetically as a first approximation. Even though the spelling is almost guaranteed to be wrong, it might be close. Having no idea about Latin, or nomenclature, I might spell this species name (phonetically) as "Pafeopeedilum delinaty" (among other various incorrect spellings). If you type this in, you'll get google to give you the correct genus spelling (it will only correct one thing at a time). However, even then, you'll notice that the first search result relates to the correct species.






Now you can c/p the correct genus spelling into the search bar and search again, this time it will correct the species spelling for you...






And now you have the full, correctly spelled, name for the plant. Starting from no knowledge other than a vague phonetic search. You can now c/p this correct spelling into other search engines or copy it onto your plant tags.

The only consideration is that this might break down a bit if there are a couple genera that are close in spelling and contain the same species name. It should still be easy to determine which one is the correct one though since the plants will often have very different forms/growth habits and/or flowers. Do a search for both, look at what you have and it should be pretty obvious which is the correct one.



Tom-DE said:


> @the plant label, "most" of the spellings on the labels are correct(did I said "most of the time"?)... however, misspelled labels(Not talking about misidentified plants) do happen from time to time, especially the plants are from some backyard growers/breeders...and that is why I said early, if you're still in doubt, check the label/spelling on some reputable websites(as you also mentioned the same thing).....



You did. Sorry, I missed that.


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## mrhappyrotter (Mar 11, 2019)

Good luck getting people to use good practice to help support search engine indexing. I say that with some degree of sincerity and some degree of sarcasm.

This forum's users are reasonably good, but other forums ... geez. And, at least in the past almost any time the subject is broached, no matter how delicately, it seems to be touchy.

I'm at the point where I just ignore the threads with subject "My lowii" or "My 'phap'". The less attention they get, the better. It's like your Paph lowii, Phal lowii, Dend lowii?


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## Tom-DE (Mar 12, 2019)

mrhappyrotter said:


> I'm at the point where I just ignore the threads with subject "My lowii" or "My 'phap'". The less attention they get, the better. It's like your Paph lowii, Phal lowii, Dend lowii?



That is a perfect example!


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## Ray (Mar 12, 2019)

I have a similar "gut feel" when I see "Another..." or "Yet Another..."


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## Guldal (Mar 13, 2019)

Ray said:


> I have a similar "gut feel" when I see "Another..." or "Yet Another..."



Oh, dear me! Here I really feel the guilty party...having once posted a thread with the heading: 'Another superbiens' - but thank God, I think I'm able to say with mr. Fawlty: "I only mentioned the war once - and I think I got away with it!" (Fawlty Towers: The Germans). 

Those of us, who had a wee bit of classic languages back in the olden days, might have a slight advantage (even if one doesn't quite remember a lot) - others might be helped a bit by little books on gardeners latin like f.ex. this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gardeners-...gardeners+latin&qid=1552486156&s=books&sr=1-2.
It is after all easier to remember the plants name, when knowing that P. gigantifolium means the Paphiopedilum with huge leaves - or that Bulbophyllum echinolabium means the Bulbophyllum (derived from ancient greek: _bolbos_ meaning "a fleshy, usually underground, stem or bud" and _phyllon_ meaning "leaf") with the lip with protrusion (latinized form of the greek _echino _(needle) and _labiumu_ (lip)).

And for the historically inclined it might be a help to remember whom the plants were named after: e.g. P. dayanum for John Day, the famous, victorian hobby grower and orchid painter; P. henryanum for the plants discoverer, Henry Azadehel, british-armenian orchidcollector, a colourful and in some quarters notorious character (read f.ex. the hugely entertaining book by Eric Hansen: Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust and Lunacy - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orchid-Fev...encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1552486757&sr=1-2-fkmr0). 
Allowing for a little bit of patriotism: the monospecific genus Seidenfadenia (named after Gunnar Seidenfaden, danish diplomat and botanist, who sparked the work of conserving and describing especially the orchid flora of Thailand. Probably the most quoted dane on orchids) : the genus Oerstedella, now sadly relegated to Epidendrum (after the danish botanist A.S. Ørsted, nephew to the renowned physicist H.C. Ørsted); and finally the albinistic form of P. hennisianum, namely fma. christiansenii (named after our local mastergrower, mr. Hans Christiansen, in whose nursery in Fredensborg this hitherto unknown colour form was discovered). ,

Concerning the spelling, find reliable sources to look it up: either online or in -dare I say it - good, oldfashioned (hand)books, monographies or scientifically published articles!

Kind regards, 
Jens


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