Further on this matter –- derived from Googling “Sir Joseph Banks opossum”. The material below, proves impossible to link to –- at least for me -– but when I performed the Google exercise, it was the fourth “hit” down on the first page: headed “Sugar Gliders: Everything about…” –- seemingly from a book by Caroline Wightman. The relevant paragraphs read:
“Contrary to popular belief, the terms possum and opossum are not interchangeable. To refer to an American opossum as a possum is to abbreviate its real name. To refer to an Australian possum as an opossum is outdated and incorrect. The o has been dropped in the Australian possum’s name in order to make a distinction between two very different groups of marsupials.
Captain James Cook’s botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, is largely responsible for initiating the confusion. In 1770, while on a voyage to the South Pacific, Captain Cook and his crew spent time aground in Australia… while aground, Sir Joseph recorded the finding of ‘an animal of the Opossum tribe’. This animal was in fact a common ringtail possum… Sir Joseph probably chose the term opossum to describe the Australian animal because it was a marsupial and showed some resemblance to the marsupial opossums which he had observed in the Americas. It was an unfortunate choice on his part because the American and Australian marsupials are only distantly related and are very different from one another. It is a pity that Sir Joseph did not stay true to form and ask the aborigines what they called the animal (as he did with the kangaroo). If he had, possums would now be called ‘toolahs’ or ‘bobucks’ or something else uniquely Australian.”
(In the course of this thread, there has come to mind for me an extremely silly musical number which was in vogue for a while in the UK about fifty years ago: a rather catchy tune which was, almost entirely, just whistled by a guy: the only words - showing up at intervals –- being, “I was Kaiser Bill’s batman”. I have perpetually running through my head at present, this foolish “musical” offering; only with the words changed to “I was Captain Cook’s botanist”.)
“Contrary to popular belief, the terms possum and opossum are not interchangeable. To refer to an American opossum as a possum is to abbreviate its real name”
Similar to an earlier post I made in this thread, Caroline Wightman is wrong. The “real name” for something is what enough people call it and other people recognize what you mean when you say it. People have been calling the North American opossum species a possum for centuries, so “possum” is not wrong, and is (a) “real name” for it. If I, at this moment, coined a new name for the North American opossum–say, the gligpooglewag, and if that name caught on and tens of millions of people started using the word gligpooglewag when referring to the North American opossum species, then “gligpooglewag” will be a “real name” for the North American opossum, along with all other regional and historical names for it that were recognized by the population using it.
Animals (and other things) can have many, many regional names, none of which are more valid than the others–this is one of the reasons scientific nomenclature was invented in the first place. People may not know what you are talking about when you say opossum, possum, or gligpooglewag, but the scientific name Didelphis virginiana is valid worldwide (and, being very specific, is the one that can be incorrect.)
I partially agree (and would say that, similarly, it’s not wrong to refer to bison as buffalo).
But what about the distinction between a “real name” and a nickname? A nickname for something or someone fits the description of “what enough people call it and other people recognize what you mean when you say it,” but (at least for certain useful meanings of “real name”) it’s not that thing or person’s real name. (For example, for some people called Larry, “Larry” is in fact their real name, while for others their real name is “Lawrence.”) In this sense, one could say that “possum” is a nickname for the American opossum, but it’s the real name of the Australian critter.
Yes, but by the same logic you could say that “opossum” is the nickname for the American animal while the “real” name is “aposoum” or “apässum” (as per dictionary.com.) And even that is an accident of which Native American groups were being asked by explorers “hey, what’s that thing?” If Indians in Florida or Georgia or South Carolina or Texas had been asked first and the name circulated amongst English-speaking Europeans, then we would have been calling it something different. (Spanish ended up with a different word for that reason.) And, since the original explorers of Australia called the animals there opossums, then “possum” in Australia could be called the nickname for opossum. Or they both could be called nicknames for the Australian Aboriginal name for them. For a given species, by a given Aboriginal group.
You see the problem with common names. Very messy.