• ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Once you get on the euphemism treadmill, you’re going to have a hard time getting off. They’re already talking about making more changes:

    A second change to the rules for naming plants that aimed to address problematic names, such as those recognizing people who profited from the transatlantic slave trade, also passed — albeit in a watered-down form

    IMO the only hard line, and the one that should have been drawn, is that scientific names are only changed due to new discoveries in cladistics. Following wherever the winds of popular culture happen to blow isn’t “updating information” in a positive sense.