Il8 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



International and National Terms. — By general consent 

 Latin constitutes a common or international language for sci- 

 entists. National terms may be either unrelated to the Latin 

 antecedents,^ hence hetero?iyms, or obviously related thereto, 

 hence paronyms. Sea horse, clicval mariji, and Seepferd are 

 synonyms, but to either an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a 

 German, two of them are foreign words and unacceptable. 

 Hippocampus is distinctly a Latin word, and the frequent occur- 

 rence of such imparts a pedantic character to either discourse 

 ■or printed page. Hippocamp, Jiippocampe, hippocampo, and 

 Hippokamp are as distinctly national forms of the common 

 international antecedent (not to invoke the original Greek 

 tTTTTo'/ca/xTro?), and are readily recognized by all, while yet 

 conforming to the "genius" of each language. 



The Paronymic Advantages of Mojionyms. — The object of 

 paronymy is to endow anatomic language with nationality with- 

 out obscuring its internationality. With mononyms the paro- 

 nymic changes (if any) are slight, involving mostly the 

 termination, or, with German, the capitalization of nouns and 

 the occasional replacement of c by k. The word is readily 

 recognized, and its abbreviation would be the same in any lan- 

 guage. But with polyonyms the relative position of the sub- 

 stantive and the qualifier is commonly reversed in the two 

 groups of languages, Romaniform and Germaniform. In the 

 former the noun more often precedes, in the latter it almost 

 always follows.^ Hence there is a different aspect of the entire 

 term, and the abbreviations are transposed. The Anglo-paronym 

 of conimissiira posterior is posterior co7nmissiire, and the respec- 

 tive abbreviations might be c. p. and /. c.; but if the Latin dio- 

 nym be mononymized vato postcommissura, the English paronym 

 is postcotnmissiire, and the abbreviation pc. answers for both. 



Limitations to Paronymy. ■ — As already admitted with regard 

 to mononymy, the " nature of things " forbids the rigid and 

 universal application of the principle of paronymy. Certain 

 parts, so exposed or so vital as to have gained early and popu- 



1 Or related so remotely that the connection is obscure. 



2 Notwithstanding the familiar exceptions, altna mater, pia mater, and notary 

 public. 



