Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1903-02-09

WORDS THAT GET TOO FAMILIAR TO
Z SUIT COME TASTES.


the Meanings of Which Are Com
monty MisundcrstOod
When the report was recently circu
lated that prominent public man had
lost his life through accidentally in
haling a quantity of carbon dioXide,
the man in the street began at once in
quiring what carbon doxide was.
AS a matter of fact, carbon dioxide
Is merely another name for carbonc
acid gas, one of the products of COM
bustion and constituent of atmos-
pheric air.
Carbonic acid gas is known by sew
eral different names, as, for instance,
carbon dioXide, carbonic oxide and car
bonic anhydride.
Consumption as name for q terri
BILE and widespread disease is known
and understood by practically every
man, woman and child in England.
But the medical fraternity, ever on the
lookout FOX something new in the way
| Of professional nomenclature elected
some years back to call it phthsis.
and then just when that unspelable
word began to be known and recog-
nized they evolved yet another-tuber-
culosis.
And as with consumption so with
most other complaints. A quarter Of Il
century ago even eminent physicians
We're content to speak of smallpox, of
typhoid fever, of lockjaw. Today they
are called variola, enteric and tetanus
respectively.
A doctor when giving evidence before
an ignorant east end jury the other
day said that the immediate cause of
death was "a violent and prolonged
fit of combined cpistaXis and stomator-
rhagia." 1t would, one would think,
have been far easier for him to have
spoken Of bleeding at the nose and
mouth, and he would at all events have
had the satisfaction of making himself
understood.
Most people now living can remem-
Der the time when bacteria We're known
gcnerically as animalculn-a not very
strictly scientific definition, perhaps,
but one easily understandable, and con-
veying, moreover distinct idea to
any one of ordinary education and in
telligcncc.
For that very reason, doubtless, the
title in question was voted out of date
and old fashioned and the word "bacil-
IT, was substituted. This means, liter
ally, "little sticks" certainly a most
novel definition, but one that scarcely
strikes the average lay mind as being
either lucid or suitable. Nevertheless,
it was accepted, and ut last became
familiar to the man in the street.
That of course could not be tolerat-
ed. Imagine bacteriologist using a
word which conveyed any meaning to
anybody outside his own charmed cir
Gle! The idea is both degrading and
preposterous; so he set to work forth
with and invented a whole host of ter
rifle verbal aliases.
He called them for example, schiz-
Omycetes, neuromuskelzellen, megacoc-
ci and polymUrphonuclcar lcucocytcS,
as well as half Il hundred other things;
while for the chemical substances in
cidental to the science he invented such
delightful terms as 'tet1hydropara
methyloXyquinoline" and "tetramcthyl-
diamido-triphenyl- carbinol-oXalate."
The craze, too, is getting commoncr
among other than scientists. Take the
word ''rceking,' for instance, and ask
your friends what they understand by
it. "Reeking:" one will say. "Why,
reeking means dripping with moisture,
some amusement from his surprise
when you tell him that reeking means
smoking, steaming." \ chimney can
reek. When horse reeks with mois-
ture, it is because its TANKS smoke and
steam.
The change from the real meaning to
that given it in popular, present day
phraseology can easily be traced. Any
thing very wet will reck in frosty
weather; so the wctness has been as
sumed to be the real characteristic of
reek.
Then there is "lurid," which nine
people out of ten use in an entirely
wrong sense. Ask a man what color
lurid is and he may answer correctly,
but the chances are that he will say,
"Red flame, orange or blight yellow"
OF course, lurd means smoky or dull
color. London fog is lurid. Thick, suf-
locating smoke is lurid.
Lurid and livid are almost synOny-
nous. Lurid flames are flames cholieu
and hidden by smoke. A lurid sunset
Is not brilliant one, but one dull and
! gray and cheerleSS
or course, the use of verbal aliases
is not an absolutely new departure. Ii
Is only that we Of this generation in
our wild strivings after novelty have
so enormously increased and multiplied
them. The taste of our grandfathers
and great grandfathers lay rather in
the direction of using over and over
hgain two Or three long and uncommon
words.
Thus Observation-Disclosures, as
synonym of fame, eminence, occurs
and recurs with almost depressing reg
ularity in the plays of old pre-Eliza-
bethan dramatists and is even used by
Shakespeare on occasion.
1t was partly in ridicule Of the silly
custom Of using this and other similar