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Most people would call it a "field mouse," but a scientist would ask, "Was it ? Or ?"

Scientists use a system of complicated-sounding names to refer to everyday creatures, a practice heavily lampooned in the Warner Bros. cartoons featuring —or, respectively, Accelleratii incredibus and Carnivorous vulgaris.

, I use these seemingly odd names myself and help my students learn them. For most people it's a huge effort, like learning a second language. That's because it is.

Humans, skunks and maple trees

The science of naming and classifying organisms . Scientists do this so they can be as precise as possible when discussing living things.

The first word in an organism's name is its , which is a group of related species, such as Panthera for lions, tigers and leopards.

The second word is the specific name identifying the , usually defined as a population that can , such as Panthera leo for lion.

Every two-word combination must be unique. Called binomial nomenclature, this naming system was popularized by Swedish naturalist in the 1700s. So, humans are Homo sapiens, the red maple Acer rubrum, garlic Allium sativum, and the eastern spotted skunk Spilogale putorius.

Today, biologists maintain containing the of plants, animals, fungi and other organisms. For instance, one of these databases—the —includes over 2.3 million species.

The scientist who discovers a species usually names it by publishing a formal description in a peer-reviewed journal. From there, the name makes its way into the databases. From then on, scientists always use that name for the organism, even if it turns out to be misleading. For example, many fossils were originally given names containing the Greek root "saur," which means lizard—even though paleontologists later realized .

Snobbery isn't the issue

To most people, these names sound inscrutable. Particularly nowadays, as science becomes and , such arcane vocabulary can come across as old-fashioned and elitist.

Given the against , that's a serious charge. But in a roundabout way, this seemingly exclusive practice is really a story of inclusiveness.

As modern science began taking shape in Europe during the 1600s, scientists had a problem. They wanted to read and be read by others, but language got in the way. French scientists couldn't read Swedish, Swedes couldn't read Italian, and Italians couldn't read German.

Also, writing about plants and animals posed a particular challenge: Many species had common names that could , and some common names might apply to multiple species. Scientists needed a way to be precise and consistent when referring to species, so that everyone could understand each other.

To sidestep the language issue, scientists of the era mostly published their work in classical Latin. Back then, —at least every European man wealthy enough to attend school and become a scientist. Others published in classical Greek, also widely taught. By sticking with these more universally known languages, early scientists made sure that science was accessible to as many of their peers as possible.

By the late 1700s and 1800s, translation services were broadly available, so naturalists such as could write in his native French, and in his native English. Today, English has become the , so most scientists .

So why continue to use Latin and Greek names today? Taxonomists do it partly out of tradition, but partly because the terminology is still useful. Even without seeing a photo of the animal, a biologist might work out that Geomys bursarius—"earth-mouse with a pouch"—was a . Or that Reithrodontomys fulvescens—"groove-toothed mouse that is yellow"—is a .

What's in a name?

Although taxonomists still largely adhere to the naming principles of Linnaeus, new scientific names are more and more frequently derived . For example, a chicken-size dinosaur discovered and named in China is called , meaning "strange wing" in Mandarin.

Some of the more recent names are touched by whimsy, with a few honoring and . Etheostoma obama is a named after the 44th U.S. president; the —Nannaria swiftae—is named after pop star Taylor Swift.

With so much of Earth's biodiversity , remember that names are just names. What we call these species often .

In the future, another language—or no language at all—might rise to dominance. Artificial intelligence may . This possibility would let everyone publish and read science in their own language. Predicting how technology will change our relationship with terminology is challenging, but the need for precise scientific language, including the names of species, will never go away.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.