I'm not addressing your topic directly, but I want
to say that I have a definite impression that let's say
when I was born, "marsupials" weren't considered
to be "mammals". Now, they are.

I was born before 1976, but I may be only describing
my own confusion and ignorance. I used to think
that dogs are male and cats are female - of course
that's before I received a version of an understanding
of why there are males and females, and it seems to
be a common mistake. I still misgender dogs and cats
sometimes. I don't often associate with them socially,
so it isn't a big problem for me.

The marsupial thing may be mine or intellectual
society's mistaken tendency to see evolution as
a teleology leading up to the appearance of ourselves.
We are placental mammals, and they come later,
and so we think that they, we, are better. But in fact
many mammals are not good citizens. Still, I think
some of us may regard marsupials as embarrassing
cousins that we prefer to overlook. I think I would
like to find that professional scientists did not
suffer from this bias and misunderstanding.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 24/01/2024 13:08, Robert Carnegie wrote:

I'm not addressing your topic directly, but I want
to say that I have a definite impression that let's say
when I was born, "marsupials" weren't considered
to be "mammals". Now, they are.

I was born before 1976, but I may be only describing
my own confusion and ignorance. I used to think
that dogs are male and cats are female - of course
that's before I received a version of an understanding
of why there are males and females, and it seems to
be a common mistake. I still misgender dogs and cats
sometimes. I don't often associate with them socially,
so it isn't a big problem for me.

The marsupial thing may be mine or intellectual
society's mistaken tendency to see evolution as
a teleology leading up to the appearance of ourselves.
We are placental mammals, and they come later,
and so we think that they, we, are better. But in fact
many mammals are not good citizens. Still, I think
some of us may regard marsupials as embarrassing
cousins that we prefer to overlook. I think I would
like to find that professional scientists did not
suffer from this bias and misunderstanding.

Systema Naturae (1735 edn) has Didelphis (Linnaeus's only marsupial)
within Quadrupedia (= mammals) and Ferae (Carnivora, Insectivora and Chiroptera). (In that edition whales and manatees are placed within fish.)

Cuvier (1816) places marsupials (including herbivores like kangarooos)
among Les Carnassiers (Chiroptera, Insectivores, Carnivores and Marsupials).

I thought that it might have been Huxley (1880) who was first to
recognise the distinction between marsupials and placentals, but I now
find "The threefold division of living mammals into monotremes,
marsupials and placentals was already well established when Thomas
Huxley proposed the names Metatheria and Eutheria to incorporate the two
latter groups in 1880" (Wikipedia - Prototheria).

I'd be surprised if any zoologist had narrowed Mammalia to exclude
marsupials, but I can't guarantee that none did.

--
alias Ernest Major

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at 1:12:49 PM UTC, Robert Carnegie wrote:

I'm not addressing your topic directly, but I want
to say that I have a definite impression that let's say
when I was born, "marsupials" weren't considered
to be "mammals". Now, they are.

I was born before 1976, but I may be only describing
my own confusion and ignorance. I used to think
that dogs are male and cats are female - of course
that's before I received a version of an understanding
of why there are males and females, and it seems to
be a common mistake. I still misgender dogs and cats
sometimes.

It's very common, and has been studied by cognitive
psychologists. Here a pop sci
version:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/canine-corner/202201/why-people-think-all-dogs-male-and-all-cats-female

In languages with grammatical genders,
"dog" is typically male, "cat" female - as e.g. Mark Twain
observed for German:

"Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and
systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. [..] To
continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are
female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male,
cats are female -- tomcats included, of course"

Twain is wrong though to think that German is unusual in this respect.
For dogs and cats, the same pattern is is found e.g. in Czech and Slovak.
Pes (dog) is male, and kocka/macka (cat) is female.

In Welsh, ci is masculine and cath is feminine. As
can be seen when an adjective is added - that then shows in
the feminine gender soft mutation of the first consonant:

Ci mawr = a big dog
Cath fawr = a big cat

In Scots Gaelic however, "cu" and "cat" are both
masculine (though piseag, kitten, is feminine, and
cuilean, puppy, is masculine) .

In romance languages, names for animals that live in close
proximity to humans often have two forms, so that biological
sex and grammatical gender align more - cattus/catta in Latin,
perro/perra and gatto, gatta in Spanish etc . "Canis" by contrast
IIRC in Latin is epicene, that is is used for both male and female
dogs (just as "felis" is female but used for male and female (wild)cats)
But the gender becoems visible again with the adjectives and
their gender agreement, so "canis laetus" and "canis laeta" for
male and female dogs respectively.


I don't often associate with them socially,

so it isn't a big problem for me.

The marsupial thing may be mine or intellectual
society's mistaken tendency to see evolution as
a teleology leading up to the appearance of ourselves.
We are placental mammals, and they come later,
and so we think that they, we, are better. But in fact
many mammals are not good citizens. Still, I think
some of us may regard marsupials as embarrassing
cousins that we prefer to overlook. I think I would
like to find that professional scientists did not
suffer from this bias and misunderstanding.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 24/01/2024 16:29, Burkhard wrote:

In romance languages, names for animals that live in close
proximity to humans often have two forms, so that biological
sex and grammatical gender align more - cattus/catta in Latin,
perro/perra and gatto, gatta in Spanish etc . "Canis" by contrast
IIRC in Latin is epicene, that is is used for both male and female
dogs (just as "felis" is female but used for male and female (wild)cats)
But the gender becoems visible again with the adjectives and
their gender agreement, so "canis laetus" and "canis laeta" for
male and female dogs respectively.

In the past, I've seen people being amused by French soldiers changing
gender when injured - un poilu to une invalide (but invalide is epicene
in modern French), which leaves me wondering when if ever the oddness
existed.

--
alias Ernest Major

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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