Virology division news: Virus nomenclature; continuing topicality
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Virus nomenclature; continuing topicality∗ L. Bos Plant Research International WUR, Wageningen, The Netherlands Received February 6, 2003; accepted April 2, 2003 c Springer-Verlag 2003 Published online June 5, 2003
The ICTV decisions to write official virus names (a) as mere mononomials and (b) to italicize them in toto [16] (e.g., Tobacco mosaic virus and Murray River encephalitis virus) and not to use italics for the names of viruses that have not yet been recognized by ICTV (e.g., Holcus lanatus yellowing virus), have been criticized in detail in these Archives [2, 4, 5, 11]. Meanwhile one of the secretaries of ICTV has reported [15] that a ballot held during the 2002 International Congress of Virology in Paris showed an 80% in favour of (re)turning to the non-latinized binomial names (such as bean yellow mosaic potyvirus or Bean yellow mosaic potyvirus) earlier discouraged by ICTV [29]. The ICTV Study Groups and Subcommittees were requested to consider the implications of such a reversal [15]. In an earlier reaction, Van Regenmortel [25, 26], then President of the ICTV, had already aired the feasibility of a return to non-latinized binomials or their official acceptance, and this has now been presented as a proposition of ICTV [15]. Van Regenmortel and Fauquet, past-President and an ongoing Secretary of ICTV, respectively [27], have concurrently responded to the objections to the above ICTV proposal regarding the italicization. In their paper, entitled “Only italicised species names of viruses have a taxonomic meaning” [27], Van Regenmortel and Fauquet dwell extensively on matters beyond the subject of the paper discussed earlier by themselves and summarized by me [5]. Suffice it to say here that I would be the last to claim, as suggested by the authors, that official virus names would not be required once the species category has been formally and widely accepted for virus classification. A major point is that ICTV rules concerning viruses should not conflict with biological nomenclature and typography in general since viruses and sub-viral agents genetically behave like organisms. This paper will first (a) discuss the continuing confusion created by trying to distinguish between the abstract and concrete uses of a virus name, (b) show that, in addition to scientific names for viruses in a taxonomic sense, common names are also needed, and (c) explain that English is not the only medium of communication about viruses. It will then (d) briefly revisit the issue of italicization of virus names. Also, newly
∗ The
ICTV Rule for orthography of species names are not applied in this paper as the author is discussing these Rules and their use would obscure his meaning.
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emerging issues associated with the naming of viruses to be discussed are (e) the designing of common names of viruses, (f) the problem that there is more to proper naming than just linguistics and typography, and finally (g) the pros and cons of acronyms.
Confusion created by trying to distinguish between abstract and concrete uses
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