New-York tribune., 1910-11-02
SCIENTIFIC TERMS.
Andrew Lang in scorn Of Their
Careless Coinage.
From NE illustrated london News.

From The illustrated London News
1t is much to be wished that when
| coming scientific terms scientific char
acters would mind their ps and as! Long
ago 1t used to be said that a poor scholar
was nourished by inventors of hair dives
and patent razorS to make sonorous
names good in advertisements, for their
wares. one of his words was, l remem-
per, Rhypophagon, and, at all events he
had combined two Greek words and had
made no unholy Wedlock OF Greek and
Latin, as in sociology" and "homO-
sexual things to ShHa3er at. Surely
scientific gentlemen might subsidize a
poor scholar TO make correct terms for
them. Indeed, if they will consult me [
will do it for love" with the help of
friends and a Greek dictionary, and to
avoid outrages on languages once respec-
table and now worthy of reverence, as
they are dead.
There is a favorite phrase Of the post
Darwinians, .'panmiXia." 1t is just as
cheap-and it is corTect--tO say pam
mlXla." Fifty years ago an advertising
hairdresser would have found that his
starving scholar gave him 'pammixia,' il
he needed II for hair wash. But now
some kind of razor is termed, think, the
'autestrop"-the self stropper. Autos
IS Greek Tor self but "strop" is not
Greek. / do not remember the Greek for
'strop''-no doubt any scho0lboy can
supply it-but science prattles about
"autO-suSgeStiOn'' when self -sugges-
ton is natural and is meant
one awful "hOWler" is quite scientific
you meet IL everywhere. In Greek
alpha, our letter a. is 'privitive," and
means not In Latin, as We know,
non means mot" Moral notoriously,
is a word OF Latin origin. IT, therefore,
d scientific character wants to say that
something is mon moral he does not
ray so, but having somehow heard in
the fourth form of alpha privative,' he
writes amoral' He might as we'll write
spot for spot barred
The very worst I ever saw was -'aSOr-
0rogamCus- The inventor OF this amaz-
ing term. by which he meant not mar
lying your sister, combined alpha
Greek with soror C'sister" in Latinl.
and threw in 'gamouS' (Greek) on the
analogy OF 'bigamous," which, by the
way, is also wrong. "Anadelphogamic'
was what my friend wanted, but, alas! he
he was as lazy at school as he was inge-
NOUS. Are we to say ''multogamy'' for
'polygamy?" 1t is no worse than the
rest.
The last scientific 'howler' which I
have seen is supernatural" The Greek
hyper has the same sense as the Latin
super above" and hitherto--befOre
scientific gents handled language,
Greek, which they don't know, and de-
test-When We meant above nature
we said supernatural" But the unin-
Structed pedantry OF the scientific char
acter now gives us ''hypernatural," and
"superhuman' will soon be hyper
human" whereas "hyperanthropic" mot
without warrant from so self-respecting
an author as Lucian) would serve the
turn, without setting our teeth ON edge.
/ am no advocate for compulsory
Greek If a boys genius is in the scien-
tific way, | would not be for the futile
folly Of trying to teach him the language
of Homer. All I ask is that scientific
gentlemen, as they neither know nor
love Greek, should leave that language
alone when they mix up their jargon of
impossible combinations. For each Of
them, surely, his native tongue ought 10
be good enough. They and the hair
dressers ought not to tamper with the
speech Of Plato and pollute the language
Of Shakespeare. Why say "pantoga-
nous when pasigamous' is correct, If
me must veil our meaning in the decent
obscurity of a dead language?