Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1903-07-09
VERBAL ALIASES.
WORDS THAT GET TOO FAMILIAR TO
SUIT SOME TASTES.

monty Misunderstood.
| When the report was recently circu-
lated that prominent public man had
lost his life through accidentally in
haling quantity of carbon dioxide,
the man In the street began at once in
quiring what carbon dioxide was.
As a matter of fact, carbon dioxids
is merely another name for carbonic
acid gas, one of the products of com
bustion and a 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 a name for 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 for something new in the way
/ of professional nomenclature, elected
| some years back to call 1t phthisis.
| and then just when that unspellable
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 a
century ago even eminent physicians
| were 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
| At of combined epistaxis 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 were known
| generically as animalcule-a not very
strictly scientific definition, perhaps
but one easily understandable. and con-
veying, moreover, a distinct idea to
any one of ordinary education and In
| telligence.
| For that very reason, doubtless, the
title In question was voted out Of date
and old fashioned and the word "bacil-
liz 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,
1t was accepted, and at 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
rife verbal aliases.
| He called them for example, schiz-
omycetes, neuromuskelzellen, megacoc-
CT and polymorphonuclear leucocytes.
as well as half hundred other things;
while for the chemical substances In
cidental to the science he invented such
delightful terms as 'tetrahydropara-
methyloxyquinoline" and ''tetramethyL
diamido- triphenyl carbinol-oxalate."
The craze. too, is getting commoner
among other than scientists. Take the
word ''reeking" for instance, and ask
your friends what they understand by
It. "Reeking% one VIII say. why,
reeking means dripping with moisture.
soaked with wet" You will derive
| some amusement from his surprise
when you tell him that reeking means
smoking. steaming." A chimney can
| reek. When q horse reeks with mois-
ture, 1t is because its'fianks smoke and
steam.
The change from the real meaning to
that given 1t In popular, present day
phraseology can easily be traced. Any
thing very wet will reek in frosty
weather; SO the wetness 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 man what color
lurid is, and he may answer correctly,
but the chances are that he will say,
"Red fame, orange or bright yellow"
OF course, lurid means smoky or duh
color. London fog Is lurid. Thick, suf-
locating smoke is lurid.
Lurid and hyid are almost synony-
nous. Lurid flames are flames choked
and hidden by smoke. A lurid sunset
Is not brilliant one. but one dull and
gray and cheerless.
OF course, the use of verbal aliases
Is not an absolutely new departure. II
is only that we Of this generation in
our wild striyings 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
again two or three long and uncommon
words
Thus Observation-Disclosures as a
synonym of fame, eminence, occurs
and recurs with almost depressing reg
uiarity 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
idiotic verbal doubles, which had sur
1vived in part even until his time. that
Rabelais makes Pantagruel speak Of
"mDrramborizeve acknowledgements
MISUNDERSTANDING my poor
eye" and ask angrily of Mr.. Mauhound
whether II was not enough to
have "morcrocasrebezaste
igoscopapondrillated us all in our up
per members. but you must also apply
such morderegrippiatabiro
burdurecaquelurihtimpaniments to our
Ehinbunes Y-I,on,ion Tit-Bits