Hello Chris. It's good to hear you are being selective with the requests. The one which prompted me to post was the request for "Saddle Oyster" for Anomia ephippium. There are 4 species of saddle oyster in the UK inshore fauna and all could easily claim that common name. There are few universal and exclusive common names I can think of for marine mollusc species; most apply to groups of species or different species in different parts of the country.

Ah yes, I saw "Sword Razor Shell" which also raised my eyebrows as it's a name I'd never ever heard used before... It looks like the requests have dried up a little, perhaps as a result of my public post in the forum.

Absolutely Steve - Suggest them as usual. I'd like everyone to think they can comment for or against any changes and vernaculars are always something that generates debate on both sides. I'm open to any addition that helps good recording and if the experts can comment on whether there could be confusion then that's all to the good :)

The "Saddle Oyster" has gone in and since then I have seen it used twice for the same species as you suggested. I will certainly watch out for anything that might be confusing, like the "Sword Razor Shell" though - that one was tricky because it generated several different hits. There have also been a few fish names recently that seemed ambiguous and I usually just keep those requests on file to jog my memory if the subject comes up again in the future :)

Assigning the same vernacular name to different taxa happens already (e.g. your example of "Redshank" or "Grayling" etc.) and, where it helps to clarify things then I can be convinced. :)  I wouldn't like to create a lot of vernaculars to encompass broad groups though because it adds to confusion - I'd argue that there is a difference between a familiar name that is used for a group of taxa (e.g. woodlouse or finch or willow) and a common name for a particular taxon (e.g. Blackbird or Redshank (bird)) but I know there are examples in between, which are groups but for small numbers of taxa (perhaps "Saddle Oyster"?). Needs more discussion here with examples and we can decide on a case by case basis :)

As to multi taxon-group vernacular aggregate taxa? That's a horrible one to start the week with! ;)

Basically, I'd decline to do that for a few reasons:

- It would be impossible to assign a broad taxonomic group and we must have that for every taxon (e.g. bird or moss)
- I'd argue that it would add to the confusion because you would have an additional, vague 'Redshank' taxon, for example
- It would only act as a bucket for records that have very low value in reporting/mapping terms because we know almost nothing about what the record relates to ... even the kingdom is in doubt.

:)