Yahoo and Latin

Diane Whitehead voltaire@islandnet.com
Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:15:14 PST
PBS uses Latin names, and Yahoo blushes.  Well, just North American 
Yahoo.  The Yahoos in Japan, Taiwan and the U.K. either didn't 
notice, or are more sophisticated.

A message from PBS contained the Latin name of that giant aroid. 
Yahoo noticed that part of that name was a term for a body part. 
Rather a high-class term, but nevertheless, Yahoo in North America 
blocked its members from receiving PBS messages.  When our PBS server 
got all its messages to Yahoo bounced back, it set all those members 
to No Mail.  They can post, but they need to read list messages in 
our archives. (This is a kindly way of dealing with the problem, as 
another list I help with would just unsubscribe those members.)

I now need to send this message personally to all those Yahoo 
members, as they won't be receiving this from the list.

So, everybody.  Here's another word we mustn't use in our messages, 
to add to the others I have warned against in the past.  (in case you 
have forgotten:  the Latin name for 'black', as in Helleborus n-----, 
and the Latin name for Pine,  P---s)  From now on, we need to call it 
Amorphoph----s.

<sigh>

 From a not-very Victorian Victorian,

Diane Whitehead
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada


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