August 2, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



145 



to substitute mechanical uniformity for indi- 

 vidual freedom of expression. There is little 

 probability that we shall ever fix upon a code 

 of mathematically exact terms denoting abun- 

 dance or rarity nor is there any need of so 

 doing. What the term, a common bird, means 

 in one place it does not mean in another. To 

 understand its approximate meaning we must 

 get a conception of a writer's whole work, the 

 character of the region, the amount of time 

 spent in the field, and the extent of country 

 covered. This being the case, there is little 

 ground for objecting to the use of a set of 

 terms indicating relative abundance, because 

 they are not patterned after some very precise 

 model. 



Few will conclude, as Mr. Kuser does, that 

 " usually common or usually rare are the same 

 as common or rare." Why deny us the use 

 of the perfectly good and expressive word 

 " usually " ? We are glad to have extra-dic- 

 -tionarial information concerning the exact 

 meaning of " quite " and " tolerably," but 

 hazard the prophecy that " quite common " 

 and " tolerably common " will be in good 

 standing long after our author has passed 

 from earth away. Some of the other dicta in 

 Mr. Kuser's paper will not impress every one 

 as convincing, for instance : " Not uncommon 

 is equal to common," " accidental is occasional 

 or rare." These words have by no means cus- 

 tomarily been used in the sense indicated, 

 nor have " scarce " and " irregular " usually 

 had the significance Mr. Kuser gives them, 

 that is, respectively, reduced in numbers after 

 having been common and sometimes common, 

 sometimes rare. In spite of our adviser's as- 

 sertion that " rare is very rare," the mere fact 

 that the two forms often occur in the same 

 bird list proves they have distinct meanings. 



Gentlemen who seek to control the use of 

 language usually have the opportunity to 

 learn that they are sadly misguided. For an 

 excellent exposition of this principle see Pro- 

 fessor Thomas E. Lounsbury's article, entitled 

 " Schoolmastering the Speech." " We have 

 always had " schoolmasters," or in a Rabel- 

 aisian synonymy, pedagogues, pedants, moni- 



' Harper's, December, 1905. 



tors, dogmatists, grammaticasters, censors, 

 hypercritics, doctrinaires, editors, recension- 

 ists, revisers, highbrows, purists. Sir Oracles, 

 precisians, language-rectifiers, admonishers, 

 reformers, talk-tinkers, stylists, theorists, 

 word-catchers and speech-conservers, but usage 

 has been little affected by their efforts. The 

 language still pursues the sweet and even 

 tenor of its way. Word-histories prove the 

 authority and freedom of usage in molding 

 the language. The objections of pedants are 

 no obstacles to this progress ; they are no more 

 than clods in the path. The great principle 

 to be borne in mind is that language is made 

 for man and not man for language. 



W. L. McAtee 



In Science, June 14, 1912, pp. 930-931, I 

 see that Mr. Kuser has attempted to formulate 

 a standard of general terms to denote specific 

 density of populations. Though the use of 

 such terms as " common " or " rare " is, owing 

 to the great amount of personal equation in- 

 volved in their application, unsatisfactory, 

 there is, at present, no practical method of 

 substituting any better or more accurate sys- 

 tem in their place. Some writers have tried 

 to give an approximation to the number of 

 individuals occurring in a given unit of terri- 

 tory, but, owing to the difficulty of counting or 

 estimating a moving or secretive population, 

 the results are often little more than the ex- 

 pression of an opinion more or less biased by 

 personal view-point, and nearly as much a mat- 

 ter of judgment as the old methods. Besides 

 which, the results, as expressed in figures, are 

 unfamiliar to most of us and difficult to trans- 

 late into comparable conceptions. 



That some system of standardization of the 

 common colloquial terms is desirable is self- 

 evident. How far it can be accomplished is 

 open to discussion. The decision of just how 

 many individuals make " common " or how 

 few make " rare " varies so greatly with the 

 personality and experience of the observer, the 

 species in question and the locality studied, 

 that absolute uniformity of use and compara- 

 bility of record seems difficult if not impos- 

 sible of attainment. However, if absolute 



