Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Nomina si pereunt, perit et cognitio rerum.

So said Carolus Linnaeus, a.k.a. Carl von Linné, undoubtedly Sweden's greatest contributor to the Age of Enlightenment with his remarkable scientific classification of nature still in use. Today's birthday boy, Linnaeus celebrates the ripe old age of 300. He apparently had quite the sense of humor, and found sex in everything: one of his classes of flowers are called, ahem, clitoria.

(Oh, and the Latin above means "Without names, our knowledge of things would perish." Interesting thought, that.)

The Swedish word for the day is djurriket. It means animal kingdom.

- by Francis S.

2 comments:

Vinicius S. Ferreira said...

Hey fellow!

It was said by Fabricius. Below is the reference: Fabricius, 1778, Philosophia Entomologica VII,1. You can find that at Google Books!

Cynips said...

It is correctly cited from the introduction of Linneus (1747) Wästgöta-resa.

 


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