SOME NEURAL TERMS. II7 



The Greek op'yavov might be rendered by paj't, instniment, or 

 agent, and these are its English heteronyms; but the Latin 

 paronym is organum ; the French, organe ; the Italian, organo ; 

 the English, organ; and the German, Organ. Each of these 

 is, so to speak, a geographic variety of the original or antece- 

 dent word; indeed, it may be regarded as the same word modi- 

 fied in accordance with the genius of each language. The case 

 may be compared with that of a traveler who maintains his 

 essential identity notwithstanding " in Rome he does as the 

 Romans do," and in other countries conforms to the customs 

 of the inhabitants in respect to garb and demeanor. 



Methods of Paronyviisation. — For linguistic reasons par- 

 onymy is general and easy with the Romance languages, less 

 so with the Germanic and with English. Still, there are ex- 

 amples enough to warrant the belief that into either may 

 be adopted any Latin substantive or adjective.^ Paronymic 

 methods vary with the language and with the word, and involve 

 more or less orthographic modification, ranging in extent from 

 the case of fiber {irom fibra) to that of alms (from clcejuosyna). 

 These are cJianged paronyms. 



Unchanged Paronyms. — But there are other evidences of 

 paronymization, viz., (a) Pronunciation ; e.g., Paris, Detroit, 

 {b) Hyphenation with a word unmistakably of another language; 

 e.g., in Balken-spleninm, the hyphen indicates the adoption of 

 the Latin spleniiim as a German word, {c) Combination ; e.g., 

 Ponsfasern and numerous similar terms, {d) Declaration that 

 the writer regards the unmodified word as adopted.^ {e) Em- 

 ployment of the vernacular form of the plural or of an oblique 

 case; e.g., the Latin plural of lejis is lentes, but the English is 

 lenses; so atlas {atlantes), atlases ; enema [enemata), enemas; 

 animal (animalia), animals : in the phrase " fibers of the cal- 

 losum," the last word might still be regarded as Latin; but if 

 one said "callosum's fibers," the English possessive would 

 indicate paronymization. 



1 Also other and perhaps all parts of speech, but they do not concern us here. 



2 Were all foreign words italicized, then in a given case the non-italicization of 

 a word would indicate its adoption. Since the Germans commonly capitalize all 

 nouns, that feature does not necessarily signify that a word is regarded as an 

 unchanged paronym. 



