The value of the binomial nomenclature comes from several things. It saves words because it replaces long descriptions, it is used everywhere, and the names are unique and stable. The system ended the use of local common names, which was the source of much confusion. When science was done by just a few European countries their common names for species were well-known. But as it happened, the common names in all countries was rather different. The same name might be used for more than one species, and several species given the same name. In the Linnaeus system, everyone uses the same name for the same species. Linnaeus chose Latin names: first, because it avoided competitive nationalism; second, because most educated people in his day learned Latin.