The daily morning Alaskan., 1903-04-07
r VERBAL ALIASES.
WORDS THAT GET TOO FAMILIAR TO ,aeo, SUIT SOME TASTES

When the report was recently cheu. lated that a prominent public man had bOat hls life through accidentally in' haf1ng a quantity of carbon dioXids, the man in the street began at once h. quiring what carbon dioTide was.
 AS q matter of fact, carbon diOIidS is merely another name for esrbonis acid gas, one of the products of com' bustion and a constituent of atmos' pheric air.
 Carbonic acd gas Is known by seV' eral different names, as, for instance, carbon dioKide carbOulc oxide aud car bOnic anhydrlde.
 Consumption as name for terri be 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 10 call it phthisis, and then just when that unspellable word began to be known and recOg nlzed 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 yariola, 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." It would, one would think, have been far easier for him to have spoken of q 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 anlmalcule-R not very strictly scientific definition, perhaps, but one easily understandable. and con veylng. moreover. distinct idea to any one of ordinary education and in- telligencc.
 For that very reason. doubtless, the title in question was voted out of date and old fashioned and the word ''bacil- II" was substituted.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 tolernt- ed. Imagine s bacteriologist using . word which conveyed any meaning to anybody outside his own charmed cir cle The Idea Is both degrading and prepOsterous; % be set 10 work forth with and invented a whole host of ter rihc verbal sllaseA
 He called them for example. schiz- Omycetes neuromuskelzellen, megacoc- ci and pOlymorphonuclear leucocytss, as we'll as half hundred other things; while fur the chemical substances In cidental to the science he Invented such delightful terms as ''tetrahydropara- methyloXyQuinoline" and "tetramethyl- dlamldo trlphenyl.carbinol-oIalate."
 Tue craze. too is getting cOmmoner among other than scientists. Take the word rocking" foy instance. and aRk your friends what they understand by lt 'Reeklngy one will 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. steamlng" A chimney can reek. When d horse reeks with mois- ture, lt Is because It's Hanks smoke and steam.
 The change from the real meaning to that given it la popular, present day phraseOlogy can easily be traced. Any thing very wet will re6k In frosty weather; SO the wetness has been as- sumed to be the real characteristic of reek.
 Then there is "lurld," 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 bright yellow" or course, lurld means smoky or dull color. London fog is lurld. Thick, suf- focating smoke is lurid.
 Lurid and uvid are almost synony- nous Lurid flames are flames choked and hidden by smoke. A lurid sunset is not a brilliant one. but one dull and gray and cheerless.
 Of course, the use Of verbal aliases is not an absolutely new departure. It is only that we of this generation in our wild strivlngs 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 hcsbllitudinltatibus, as a synonym of fame. emlnence, 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.
 It was partly ln rldicule of the silly custom of using this and other similar 'ldtottc ,.rboI douhlea which had Rur.