212 ON CERTAIN POINTS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



XV. 



On certain Points of Nomenclature. By a Correfpondent* 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR, 



fnlfoKh?* APPREHENDING that your mode of writing certain 

 the Greek newly impofed names of fubftances in chemiftry, arifes from 



Vowel v. inattention, and being milled by the French, I take the liberty 



of a friend to remind you, that, in Engliih, it is not ufual to 

 write the vowel i for the v of the Greeks, but y ; hence, in 

 our language, we do not write oxfgen, hydrogen, oxz'genifed, 

 &c. but oxygen, hydrogen, oxygenited, &c. : you write, how- 

 ever, properly, oxz'de inftead of oxj/d, as fome perfons fpell the 

 word ; becaule ox/de fhews the etymology in ofa and e»3os 

 better than oxz'de. 



Your's ever faithfully, 



A. B. C. 



ANSWER, 



I DO not profefs to have directed much attention to the fub- 

 ject of nomenclature; though I am well aware of its impor- 

 tance to the acquifition, as well as the communication of 

 knowledge. It is, therefore, with confiderable diffidence that 

 I ftate my apprehenfion, that neither ufage in a language, nor 

 the motive of precifely indicating the derivation of a term, are 

 very cogent arguments for adopting any particular mode of 

 ftructure, if other motives prefent themfelves. To me it feem- 

 ed at leaft as forcible a reafon for the ufe of i inftead of^, in the 

 words alluded to, that, together with their derivatives, they 

 are fo very numerous, as to make it defirable to accommodate 

 them to the general ufage of the modern languages ; and this 

 appeared to be promoted by following the change propofed by 

 the framers of the chemical nomenclature. 



XVI. Duplicate 



