Do Taxonomists have a sense of humour?

Before getting down to addressing the question I must note that there are two main uses of the word 'Humour'.  These are discussed pretty well in in the On-line Dictionary:

• 1.Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.; as, the humors of the eye, etc. Note: The ancient physicians believed that there were four humors (the blood, phlegm, yellow bile or choler, and black bile or melancholy), on the relative proportion of which the temperament and health depended.
• 5.That quality of the imagination which gives to ideas an incongruous or fantastic turn, and tends to excite laughter or mirth by ludicrous images or representations; a playful fancy; facetiousness.

I was thinking rather more of the second of these approaches, but from time to time the activities of the profession of taxonomy have generated both yellow and black biles in my vicinity!  Fortunately for you, I do not have any images of same!

As a second preambulatory parenthesis, it was suggested that the question should be amended to refer to whether taxonomists show a sense of humour in social situations.  I don't know whether it is possible to answer that, since I am not sure if a taxonomist has ever been clearly identified in a social situation.  They tend to obfuscate, saying such things as "I work in the biological sciences ..." in much the same way as a proctologist ...

... identifies as a specialist medical practitioner (thanks for the image Google).

I am not implying that taxonomists are associated exclusively with the life sciences.  Indeed, they are often associated with the dead sciences.

In common parlance the word 'scientist' is frequently preceded by the word 'mad'.

I am not proposing that this linkage applies at all to taxonomists although the definition above, in referring to ideas of a fantastic form, does perhaps hint at a link between insanity and humour.

To cut to the chase I conclude that taxonomists do have a sense of humour.  To quote from a very famous scientist ....

WHY IS IT SO?

There are two elements to this, one demonstrating their love of practical jokes, the other a more sophisticated use of language..

In terms of practical jokes their love of constant change provides continual colour and movement in the lives of those poor folk trying to keep up to speed with nomenclature and inter-taxon relationships.  At times this can seem quite useful as when a genus containing many different forms of an organism is split so that the different forms all get grouped in different genera.  One could say the door gets opened on the taxon. However, a few years later they all get merged back again and it is thus apparent a bucket of whitewash was above the door. Oh dear what a pity: never mind! 

It has taken a while for me to really get a grip on the use of language as the apex of taxonomic wit.  I should have twigged when an experienced observer said that they always referred to "Poa lab" as they couldn't remember how to pronounce, let alone spell, 'labillardieri', that spelling coming from a spreadsheet provided by a very well-respected local field scientist.  This is a good example of the humour involved as quite recently I tried to look up this species on Plantnet where I found the definitive spelling to be Poa labillardierei - note penultimate 'e'!  I can understand a desire to honour Jacques Labillardière but couldn't they have added an 'i' to his given name so that we had Poa jacquesi?

The preceding point is made even more of a belly laugh when one finds that the name of Epilobium billardiereanum has been revised to E billardierianum.  The name correctly Jaques family name and then some goose in search of  a publication has revised it, changing the final 'e' to an 'i'!

Some of the humour goes a little against the 'rules' of English.  Surely there is something about never having 4 vowels in row as in Bossiaea?

Perhaps one person in 50 (of the population group interested in 'beans') can remember to include the "i" and the first "a"!  The nerd in the corner chuckling, as we realise the rule is really just a guideline, is clearly a taxonomist!

We then come to my favourite taxonomic whoopee cushion.  Galium gaudichaudii.

I really have no idea how one pronounces the species element of that name but it must be one of the few place in any language where an "i" gets repeated.  In one application another field scientist's brain rejected this abomination and replaced the second "i" with "ana" which is somehow easier to pronounce.  That in itself should have been a clue that taxonomy wouldn't travel that route!

My examples thus far have all dealt with the 'scientific' names.  However, sometimes taxonomy wanders off into the arena of common, or vernacular names.  This isn't too much of a problem with plants, fungi or insects since most interested folk use the scientific names (or at least they do where they think they know such names).  With birds the opposite is true: only what Sean Dooley describes as an ornithologist uses the Latin. My favourite example of the humour of avian taxonomy was changing the name of the White-eyed Duck to Hardhead.

Notice the object behind the beak: it is an eye and it is white!  There were two stated reasons for this not being  acceptable to taxonomists:

1. the females have a dark eye; and
2. the term 'White-eye' is used for the genus Zosterops and the professionals got confused. Now if you don't know whether the bird in question is a dark brown, medium sized DUCK  or an olive and buff coloured tiny passerine, your problems are in need of professional help!

But still point 1 applies.  So why 'Hardhead'?  Does one need to add a plank of teak to one's birding kit, for comparitive purposes?  No sir.  Apparently it was a duck-hunters name reflecting the difficulty of hitting the species.  Rather than recognising this as an inevitable consequence of having a bottle of OP for breakfast they claimed the ducks had hard heads.  So duck hunters, as well as taxonomists, have a sense of humour!