Re: [dinosaur] Keresdrakon, new pterosaur from Cretaceous of Brazil (free pdf)

> Certain genus names are deliberate portmanteaus, such as _Archelon_
> (archos + chelone)  and _Spiclypeus_ (spica + clypeus)

Indeed, these are examples of haplology (deletion of a syllable when the following syllable begins with the same consonant), which is a semi-regular process in Greek.

Nick Pharris

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 25, 2019, at 11:58 PM, Tim Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> David Marjanovic <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>>> Other examples include Confuciusornis, Xiphosura, etc., where  for ease of pronunciation or clarity of etymology, a first noun is left unmodified with a grammatical ending intact with a consonant before a vowel.
>> 
>> Bad examples: neither ease of pronunciation nor clarity of etymology would be any worse in the expected forms "Confuciornis" and "Xiphura". These names were simply coined by people who – like practically all people on this planet
>> except the very few (and shrinking!) who've had a very, very peculiar kind of education – didn't know enough about Latin or Greek to even wonder whether they should ask someone who might know better.
> 
> 
> Yes, this is what it boils down to.  In these situations it would be
> useful to consult someone who is familiar with the grammatical
> conventions of Greek or Latin.  Many 'bad' genus names are based on a
> lack of understanding of how the compound name *should* be formed,
> based on the original language(s).  I'd say this is the case for
> _Confuciusornis_, as well as many other dinosaur genera (e.g.
> _Eousdryosaurus_, _Gigantspinosaurus_, _Notatesseraeraptor_,
> _Aberratiodontus_, _Alethoalaornis_ etc etc - I could go on, but it's
> depressing).
> 
> Certain genus names are deliberate portmanteaus, such as _Archelon_
> (archos + chelone)  and _Spiclypeus_ (spica + clypeus); so for these
> examples the improper formations are deliberate (and also inventive),
> to make the names more euphonic.  So they are totally different to
> those names in which the first noun is left unmodified (such as
> _Confuciusornis_).