Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-05-05
"sclentinc PedautrY", vs.. CoIloquIal
LOOseness.

THE objection which unlettered persons
bring against what they are pleased to cali
scientific pedantry" that It Is useless
and waste of time" is lust the very
ground upon which scholars Justify their
resort TO polysyllables with Greek termi-
nations, They save time, it is claimed,
instead of wasting it, They are not d
burden to the memory, but Tighten the
burden which that oppressed power must
carry. Let anyone notice for himself the
case of the common names of fruits and
flowers, where the commoner. and more
popular the particular thing is, the more
names IL has to stagger under and the
greater the confusion that exists in deter.
mining distinctive title for it. In such
cases scientific pedantryn is the only
means of escape from the burden ofeon-
fusion occasioned by colloquial looseness.
Every nurseryman's catalogue will show
this. There is hardly favorite apple
known but its record is obscured by the4
fact that it has provincial name in everya
different locality and the " simplicity" OF
the common names OF flowers, |" Love
entangle,n &c Bouncing Bet" JohnnYzA
jump.up," Forgetme not" "Ladvis.
slipper" and the like, are only provih-
cialisms, leading inevitably to confusion.
The case is the same with the commercial
names which appear in our cargo lists and
custom house manfests, where scientific
pedantryr is greatly needed for evolving
something like consistency and uniformity
out of the confused wilderness of articles
having twenty different cQlloquial names
il twenty different languages. A little
scientific pedantry" applied to our trade
lists, tariffs and such things, would be
effective in eXpurgating from these barbar-
isms like agaric," "argols,' alkekengi,
bpzOar paianI1f ctIfph 0pir
galangal, garancine, kelp, munieet, the
complicated catalogue of essential oils,
orchill, orpiment, pblanglein, picric,
roucou, saloup, sandarac, sesamum,
shales, "tonquin, tongua or tonka'' beans,
vermuth, zaffre, etc. The advantages of
scientific pedantry'' in giving us q
simple uniform decimal system of weights
and measures, instead of the complicated
disorder ofpicul, catty and mace arrOba
and mayo pipe, barrel and tun, puncheon,
hogshead, tierce, runlet, piece, tunnc,,
barrique, ohm, mas, elmer fuder and ,
anker, each with its own dimensions and
its independent, irreducible standard,
would be almost incalcuable. triI va
In these respects the United States ares
far in advance of England, which, with
inveerate conservatism, clings to the old
provincialism of weight and capacity,
still has her long ton and her hundred
weight her quarter and her stonei still
sells corned beef and pork by the "pi6ce"
and tiTkin bricks by the "load," pitch
by the stand" butter by the tub" can
vass by the bolt" cheese by the
weight" coal by the "challron" or
keel" fish by the last" flour by the
sack" glass by the "seam," bloves by
the 'dicker," hay by the "truss," her
rings by the "cade" and "cran," hops
| by the "fodder," indigo by the
'maund," lead by the " fodder,h
nails by the ''score," meal by the "boll,'
! soap by the "chest," tar by the "bartel,"
deals by the quarter" tin by the tag
GER" wood by the "stack," and wool by
the "pack, T." 'clove" or 'iod," producing
a confusion that would have supplied the
workmen Of Babel with weights and
measures enough to have let them go on
with their building. But Brazil and
most of the other South American States
are nearly as far ahead of us as we are
ahead of Great Britain. They have dis
carded their old weights and measures
and adopted their metrical system detin-
itively, while with us the metrical system
is only permissible one, and is scarcely
ever made familiar to the youthful mind
by being taught in the schools, in spite OF
the fact that the whole system. can be aG-
quired in less time that it takes the aver
age school-boy to memorize the single
table of "long measure.-N. Y. World