Template:Hybrid/doc

The template is for properly formatting the name of a Hybrid (biology) (including a nothospecies or nothogenus) in the context of a scientific name (or as one), to comply with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), and International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP). The style it uses has also been adopted internationally by biology organizations, and is standard practice in all zoological, botanical, horticultural, and bacteriological writing (though exact spacing particulars may vary from publisher to publisher).

What it does for you

 * Used without parameters, it supplies the proper "×" character (multiply/times/by sign, not an "x" or "X" letter), as required by the specifications. It also forcibly de-italicizes this character (also as required by the specs) in infobox parameters that pre-italicize everything.
 * With one or more parameters, it inserts the "×" character at the correct place in the hybrid name for the type of hybrid it is (if you use the template as documented below), and ensures the "×" character is not italicized – all as required by the specs.
 * Ensures that the first letter of the input is capitalized, as required by the specs for most cases.
 * Permits this to be overridden to lower-case for species-level hybrid names, which can exist in botany (e.g. Citrus )
 * Italicizes the hybrid's epithets, as required by the specs.
 * Joins the "×" to the first epithet (when given two) with a non-breaking space, and a regular space between "×" and the second epithet, in cases like ; this is the standard spacing for all such hybrids in the specs.
 * Uses a hair space character between "×" and the epithet (when given just one), in cases like Citrus . This spacing is optional in the spec for this sort of hybrid name, but is a readability improvement over both full spacing (which is confusingly ambiguous) and no spacing (harder to parse), and is a metadata improvement over no spacing. It's also better than no spacing for accessibility reasons, since screen readers will interpret it as a times character followed by a name to pronounce, rather than as a jumble of non-word code to sound out character by character. (A hair space is preferable to a thin space here, because the italics are only permitted to apply to the name not the interpolated "×", and the italic slant away from that character makes a thin space appear as large as a full space.) The template encodes the hair space as a numeric character entity,, because the named HTML entity,  , fails in some browsers.
 * Wraps two constructions in the template to prevent awkward line-breaking between the "×" and the epithet it should be "stuck" to (because browsers are not consistent in how they treat hair spaces, and many will wrap immediately before or after one):
 * For "" cases, the "×" is nowrapped to the first epithet.
 * For "Citrus " cases, the "×" is nowrapped to the second epithet.

In short, it reduces these complicated and error-prone scrawls: to these simpler markups, respectively:

In automated taxoboxes
This template must not be used in the value of taxon or genus parameters in automated taxoboxes, otherwise automatic italicization will not work. In this context, always use "×".

Usage
By default (with no parameter input) the template simply outputs the "×" character, forcibly de-italicized in case it's being subjected to an infobox line's default italics.

This template should not be substituted. It is not designed for that, and doing so will impede part of the purpose of the template (to mark up hybrid names in a predictable, automated way so that if ICZN and ICN change the prescribed nomenclatural markup, a simple change to this template will apply the new style site-wide).

Parameters
These are easiest understood by looking at the examples in the sections below.


 * 1 or first unnamed parameter – This is always the first epithet of the hybrid.
 * 2 or second unnamed parameter – This may be the second epithet, or – for a special case – it can be any of x, X , or × , as documented below.
 * yes or y – Lower-cases the first letter of the input when the template is only supplied with one epithet. This is only for below-genus cases with their own epithets in botany, like
 * yes or y, etc. – Reverses the italics handling, for use of a taxon inside a book title; see below for details.

Alone, to just generate the "×" character
This template is designed for instances where the hybrid cross symbol (×) cannot be displayed correctly (i.e., non-italicized) in a scientific name, due to italic pre-formatting in the Taxobox or some other template, like, etc. (Wether any particular font even displays × differently when italicized varies font-by-font, but we should encode it correctly.)

Example usage, in a parameter the output of which is forcibly italicized:

which produces:

The same format is used for non-italicized infobox lines, and in running article text.

Using a non-breaking space is best in running text, but may not be necessary in an infobox parameter. It is safest, and never wrong, to include it.

With two epithets, attaching "×" to the first with a non-breaking space
You can supply the template with both hybridized epithets as parameters, and it will non-breaking-space and nowrap the "x" to the first of these, and also output the second epithet:

Example (for running text, or an infobox, whether it force-italicizes or not):

which produces:

This template does support three or more epithets. Simply use multiple instances of the template for complex cases. You can even nest them, for the non-breaking effect (to keep every "×" connected to an epithet, without making the entire three-name construction non-breaking):

produces:

This template does support a   syntax.

With the first epithet, to attach "×" to it with a non-breaking space
To avoid having to manually generate the character and  markup, you can supply the template with the first epithet as the first parameter, and "x" or "X" (or, of course, the legit "×"):

Example in an infobox parameter that auto-italicizes:

which produces:

Example in running text, or in an infobox parameter that does not auto-italicize:

which produces:

Complex example in an infobox parameter that auto-italicizes, showing use of italics markup to "flip" italics on plain-English material that shouldn't be in italics:

which produces:

Complex example in running text, or in an infobox parameter that does not auto-italicize, showing selective use of italics for a bit that should be italicized (genus name):

which produces:

This style should only be used in infoboxes and other tabular data to save space; otherwise use plainer English.

With a single epithet, to prefix "×" to a botanical hybrid name given in stand-alone "" format
The "×" is used as prefix, in botany only, for a nothogenus or nothospecies hybrid. This template will generate the character, hair-space it to the epithet, and nowrap the construction:

produces:

When lower-case is required
This same style is also used for species-level epithets for hybrids that have been given their own conventional names, except the epithet is lower-case, and comes after the genus. The yes (or undefined) parameter is used to make the case change:

produces:

One of the purposes of this template is distinguishing this use more clearly from cases, which use full spacing, and which are hybrids between two taxa, not a genus epithet followed by a species-level hybrid epithet; probably only biologists would notice the capitalization difference.

Use in a book title in running prose (not in citation templates)
For things italicized in running text (like a hybrid's progenitor epithets), the convention is to invert the italics when these appear inside a book title or other surrounding string that is itself italicized. This can be done with this template by using yes (or y). Example: which yields: This must not be used in titles of works in citation templates, as such markup breaks the citation template's COinS metadata. Just use a manual  (without  or other templating).
 * "According to Alice B. Ceesdale's The Bengal Cat and International Animal Trafficking Laws: An Index of Regulations Affecting Hybrids, at least thirteen countries ..."

A deprecated use
This template is not for misusing the "×" character outside of a scientific name, as a stand-in for plain English:


 * Right: "Iron Age pig" is a breeder term for a hybrid between a wild boar (Sus scrofa) and a domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus).
 * Wrong: "Iron Age pig" is a breeder term for a wild boar (Sus scrofa) × domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) hybrid.

The latter is extremely jargonistic, journal-style writing, and may not be understood by readers who are not biologists.