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Help[Facts] Re: Vanessa
in reply to a message by SHANNON
What you write, sounds very interesting. I knew a genus of butterfly was called Vanessa but I never found out why. I even mailed to a professor of biology, a butterfly expert, but he didn't know either.
We would have to ask some other biologist, when those butterflies were first called VANESSA; it may not have been before Swift invented the name (this is at least what some sites say: "VANESSA: Invented by author Jonathan Swift. He arrived at it by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend. Vanessa was l a t e r used as the name of a genus of butterfly." http://www.geocities.com/nyyrdasmidja/Eigennamen.html) But even in case the butterfly was called Vanessa, before Swift created the name, I don't know whether he was aware of that fact. What book is it you are quoting, when you say "… one of the loves of Dean Swift …"?
Another interesting question is: Was VANESSA used as a given name before Swift wrote his poem? At least in Germany and France the name doesn't appear before the late 60s of the 20th century, but I don't know about England. Do you? Does anybody else?
As far as I know biologists usually take their names for plants and animals from Latin or else they latinize names from other languages. So why would they turn PH to V? Greek words or names in Latin always keep their PH, so why not here? This makes me curious - and suspicious of that theory.
Now I looked up PHANES in various dictionaries and what I found was that he (! I couldn't find Phanessa) was the first God in the creation of the world in a religious system called Orphicism. No butterfly though according to my books, in ancient times his name was derived from the Greek word "phaino" which means "appear" (he was the first God to appear, I suppose). So if you know more about Phanes and butterfly, I'd be very interested in that bit.
So please let me know where your information is taken from. Thanx!
Andy ;—)
We would have to ask some other biologist, when those butterflies were first called VANESSA; it may not have been before Swift invented the name (this is at least what some sites say: "VANESSA: Invented by author Jonathan Swift. He arrived at it by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend. Vanessa was l a t e r used as the name of a genus of butterfly." http://www.geocities.com/nyyrdasmidja/Eigennamen.html) But even in case the butterfly was called Vanessa, before Swift created the name, I don't know whether he was aware of that fact. What book is it you are quoting, when you say "… one of the loves of Dean Swift …"?
Another interesting question is: Was VANESSA used as a given name before Swift wrote his poem? At least in Germany and France the name doesn't appear before the late 60s of the 20th century, but I don't know about England. Do you? Does anybody else?
As far as I know biologists usually take their names for plants and animals from Latin or else they latinize names from other languages. So why would they turn PH to V? Greek words or names in Latin always keep their PH, so why not here? This makes me curious - and suspicious of that theory.
Now I looked up PHANES in various dictionaries and what I found was that he (! I couldn't find Phanessa) was the first God in the creation of the world in a religious system called Orphicism. No butterfly though according to my books, in ancient times his name was derived from the Greek word "phaino" which means "appear" (he was the first God to appear, I suppose). So if you know more about Phanes and butterfly, I'd be very interested in that bit.
So please let me know where your information is taken from. Thanx!
Andy ;—)
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