Some Humbugs of Science 133 



but four or five, as if trying to bring dis- 

 credit on the vernacular. 



The zoologists are even worse, for the 

 simpler the form the more dreadful things 

 they call it, and a harmless little bug or 

 fish ignorantly wears a title as long as six 

 of itself. Does it worry these worthies 

 that man is called what he is, instead 

 of homo sapiens? (Sapiens, of course, in 

 honor of the scientists who so endowed 

 him.) The mineralogists have been fairly 

 sensible. The usual ending of ite and lite 

 in their names abbreviated from lithos, a 

 stone is harmonious rather than otherwise ; 

 but the geologists again plunge us into de- 

 spair with their conchological, ichthyologi- 

 cal, herpetological, ornithological, and ento- 

 mological six-jointers. Astronomers find it 

 easier for strange reasons to say alpha Cen- 

 tauri than A Centauri. Why not Swan A, 

 B, C, and so on, rather than alpha Cygni, 

 beta Cygni, and the rest of the mixed Greek 

 and Latin? Rather, why not abolish the 

 constellations, since not one of them has the 

 faintest semblance to the thing it is named 

 for? Classicism dies hard. So does humbug. 



