Securing Better Professional Terminology. 3 



phrases. In the absence of such a body is it not likely that 

 foresters in America will soon find themselves in a hopeless tan- 

 gle of terminolog)' ? Ample precedence for such an experience 

 can be found in many sciences and professions. 



Let us have a standing committee in the Society of American 

 Foresters, the duties of which shall be somewhat as follow : 



(i) to consider and revise current terminology 



(2) to note or receive all new professional terms and phrases 

 and to pass upon their suitability, recommending their 

 adoption or rejection. 



(3 ) to recommend new or other terms for all terms rejected, if 

 deemed desirable, 



(4) upon application, to consider and recommend terms for 

 any conception deemed worthy of fixation in our profes- 

 sional language. 



EDITOR S NOTK TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE. 



The Editor, having to handle the manuscripts of his contribu- 

 tors, desires to express his full sympathy with the above proposi- 

 tion. He is often filled with sadness at the lack of uniformity 

 net only, but of linguistic sense in the choice of terms. There 

 are any number of clumsy, misinterpreted, misunderstood terms 

 which recur in the contributions to the Quarterly. He desires 

 to recall his longer article in Vol. HI, p. 255, written more than 

 eight years ago, when reviewing the U. S. Forest Service Bul- 

 letin 61, which tried to establish a terminology. He there 

 laid down some principles which may bear repetition in this 

 connection. 



We hold that technical terms are merely conveniences for 

 quick and precise speech and should be first of all tested by 

 that object. To attain it, they should conform as much as prac- 

 ticable to at least the following four requirements, important in 

 order of their sequence: 



(a) A term should be necessary. As long as common lan- 

 guage is sufficient to precisely state the idea, special terminology 

 is superfluous, except, perhaps, for special cases or special writ- 

 ings. A corollary is that, as long as an accepted term employed 

 in other sciences or arts expresses precisely the conditions or 

 ideas to be expressed, there is no gain in coining a new word. 



