Talk:elk

What's the difference between an elk, a moose, and a wapiti? There's some information on this page: http://www.desertusa.com/mag00/may/papr/elk.html which might help improve these entries. Hippietrail 06:11, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Whoa! This is is trickier than I thought. Heres another helpful link: http://forum.leo.org/archiv/2002_06/04/20020604192617l_en.html

This brings up the point which I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks that for animals and plants (etc) we should have an entry for the taxonomy, which is far less ambiguous than the names in any normal language. I also hate how many animal entries have the taxonomy as the "latin" translation. The latin translation field should be reserved for words actually used in classical or vulgar latin or even words recently invented by the Vatican - but not for taxonomical classications! Hippietrail 06:21, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I heard that elk in invariable at plural

"Elk are ..."

Also a swan?
Also a kind of swan, according to Webster 1913; see hooper. Equinox ◑ 15:42, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August–October 2019
Sense 1 is currently: "(originally) Any large species of deer such as red deer, moose or wapiti." I can't find sources to suggest this is true. OED, Lexico and the other Wiktionary articles for words related to elk do not support this. It's also not mentioned in the Wikipedia article. The original use for elk seems to be the current European use of the term, referring to what North Americans call a moose. Mclay1 (talk) 03:44, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Since this requires verification of usage, it really belongs here (I know you were told rfd, but that was an error).
 * I also have my doubts about whether the second definition is distinct from the third, and whether the accompanying usage note means anything, but first things first. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I am very reluctant to rely much on the WP article or Wiktionary articles which don't even give a nod to what Mammals of the World calls . If the taxonomy is a bit controversial, then we really need to work hard on the vernacular names and not necessarily lean on the taxonomic names for our definitions. DCDuring (talk) 04:56, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't really feel qualified to make sense of this, but Tule Elk and Elk and Elk Hunting provide some breakdowns of Elk species that don't seem to correspond that well with our definitions. Kiwima (talk) 05:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * And their definitions don't correspond well with those of the subspecies of (See comments, which indicate how unsettled the taxonomy is.). DCDuring (talk) 16:08, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

RFV-resolved Kiwima (talk) 20:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC)