virology division news : Only italicised species names of viruses have a taxonomic meaning
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2247
Virology Division News
Only italicised species names of viruses have a taxonomic meaning M. H. V. Van Regenmortel1 and C. M. Fauquet2 2
1 ESBS, CNRS, Illkirch, France ILTAB/Danforth Plant Center, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
In a recent article in these columns, L. Bos [4] once again criticised the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) for having introduced in 1998 a number of changes to the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature [10]. Bos actually misrepresents the changes that were introduced in the Code and fails to recognise that official virus species names became necessary once the species category had been accepted as the lowest but most fundamental taxonomic level in virus classification. Official or international species names adopted by the ICTV became the scientific names of virus species, they were written in italics like the names of genus and family taxa and they were of course not to be translated into other languages. Names like Mus musculus or Picornaviridae are obviously not translatable. Bos berates the ICTV for not becoming involved in deciding which common or vernacular virus names should be used in different languages. He claims that the ICTV disregards the existence and value of common virus names and further maintains that such common names are used in an abstract taxonomic sense. Such assertions cannot go unchallenged. Common names of viruses refer to concrete viral objects that cause diseases and the ICTV has no mandate to provide dictionary-type guidelines on what the names of these infectious agents should be in different languages. Until 1995 [12] the ICTV reports listed the names of many viral entities, i.e. viruses, strains, isolates or serotypes, of which the taxonomic status was uncertain. What the alleged abstract “taxonomic sense” of such common virus names was supposed to be, Bos does not tell us. Only when it was accepted that the lowest taxonomic category that should be considered by the ICTV is the virus species, did it become necessary to decide which names should be allocated to this taxonomic category. Only at this stage did the corresponding new species names acquire a taxonomic sense. Instead of coining new Latin names for the officially recognised virus species, the ICTV decided to confer the status of official species names to the English common names of viruses. The ICTV also introduced a typography using italics and a capital initial to indicate that these names corresponded to abstract taxonomic entities rather than to concrete viral agents. The use of English instead of Latin names for species is in line with the fact that English has replaced Latin as the language of communication used by scientists. The major
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Virology Division News
journals in Virology are written in English and all virologists are conversant with the English names of viruses. Using English names obviates the unenviable task of coining new Latin epithets for each virus species. Even proponents of Latinised binomial species names for viruses
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