150 SCIENTIFIC N.^IES FORM. 



NOUNS. 



Singular Nominative. t Genitive. 1 Plural Nom. | Genitive. 

 II. -on, ?i. — -a. — 



HI. -ma, 71. I -matos. | -mata. | -maton. 



Examples are found in polyzo'on, plur. pohjzoa, and stoma, plur. 

 stomata, the stem of which, as is the case in all Greek nouns ending in 

 -ma , is formed by adding t to the nominative. 



Having obtained the stem of a word, of whatever declension, if we 

 wish to form a derivative, we add to it any tennination which expresses 

 the required idea. The only point of importance occurs when this 

 termination begins with a consonant. In this case the letter t is 

 generally inserted, if the word is of Latin, and the letter o, if it is of 

 Greek origin. Thus from the Latin heder-a," ivy ," we get heder-aceus 

 and hederi-foUus ; but some botanists, wishing probably to retain the a, 

 write hederccfoUns. For this there seems to be no classical authority 

 whatever, and it should therefore be avoided, as founded upon a mistaken 

 idea. Other examples are Boragin-acece, from borago, Uiiarii-folius, 

 from hnaria, anagaUidi-foUits, from anagaUis, /on/i(c/-/ormt', fi-om formica. 

 As before, some entomologists "write formica-forme, but the very same 

 persons spell tipuUforme, from tipula, without the ce. Similarly from the 

 Greek we get chloro-phijll, morpho-logy, Gastero-poda, &c. This inserted 

 generally serves as a raark that the roots fi-om which the word is 

 derived are Greek; I say generally, because some words, as Fungology, 

 are hybrids. Fungus being a Latin, and /of/os, aGreekword. Thereisone 

 case where this o is inserted, which is seldom suspected. Thus hypnoidet 

 is compounded of hypn-um, a moss, and the termination -ides, meaning 

 " resembhng, similar to." This termination was used by the Greeks, but, 

 since in veiy ancient times it began Tvith a consonant ha\'ing a sound hke 

 / or r, it required the insertion of o before it. Thus we should get 

 hypno-fides. This consonant, (called the " lost " Digamma,) ceased to be 

 used by the Greeks thousands of years ago, but they still retained the o, 

 and we follow their example. Thus the o and i in hypnoides belong 

 to distinct syllables : the importance of this will bo seen when we come 

 to pronunciation. There are many words used in scientific Enghsh of 

 the same kind, e.g., albuminoid, anthropoid, and botryoid. The same 

 termination is sometimes used in the j)lural in the names of sections of 

 the animal and vegetable kingdoms; thus Crinoidea, fi'om crin-on, "a 

 lily," is really crino-idea, and means " hly-like " animals, and Aroidese, 

 from ar-nm, the cuckoo-pint, means "arum-like" plants. There ia 

 another class of words, apparently similar, but really of a different 

 origin, those ending in -idie or -iadce, which must not be confounded with 

 those just mentioned. This latter termination was used to designate the 

 children and I'emoter descendants of any person ; thus the Pelopidaa 

 were the descendants or family of Pelops, and the meaning with which 

 it is employed now is, whether pui-posely or not, very similar. The 

 Equidaj, for instance, are the descendants of some common original 

 form, which existed in geologic times, to which indeed the name Equus 

 could not be apphed, but which was the type and first foreshadowing of 



