I mean, some of the taxanomic divisions do have common names as well - jawed fish and ray-finned fish might come up in that conversation. And don't forget some of the formal names and roots are Greek as well.

What kind of whale is that? “It’s a whale whale… you know the original whale… the proper whale… the right whale.” There’s actually a paragraph in Moby Dick about this.

Was that the weird chapter that was just a biology lesson, but was also completely wrong?

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

I mean, some of the taxanomic divisions do have common names as well - jawed fish and ray-finned fish

Searching for "jawed fish" takes me here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnathostomata

But that's jawed vertebrates. So I'm not sure which taxonomic group you're referring to when you're saying "jawed fish". The wiki page indicates salamaders are in the Gnathostomata group. Are salamanders considered to be jawed fish?

I think this just goes to further prove that using english words for taxonomy just causes a lot of confusion. My search results for "jawed fish" also returns a lot of results from national park sites and yeah, that kind of terminology for a national park conversing with a layperson is fine. Close enough for a layperson, but for a biologist they probably should use Gnathostomata when that's what they're talking about.

Was that the weird chapter that was just a biology lesson, but was also completely wrong?

Probably, but it's been awhile since I read it. But it would be insane to read Moby Dick expecting it to be a good biology text book. You have to read it as people's understanding of biology and terminology in the past, which is why I referenced it in the context of the evolution of linguistics about ocean animals.