138 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 369. 



' ascended in the form of metallic super- 

 heated vapors which combined eventually 

 with ebullient steam to form other aque- 

 ous solutions, causing geyser-like discharges 

 at the surface, aided by subterranean and 

 irrepressible pressure.' At the same time 

 certain ' dynamical forces ' were very busy 

 indeed and ' eventuated in the opening of 

 fissures ' — of which one can only regret 

 that they did not swallow up the author 

 as Nathan and Abiram were once engulfed 

 in the sight of all Israel. 



It will be well to contrast these two ex- 

 amples of exuberant verbosity because the 

 first befogs the statement of a scientific 

 observation of value, made by an able man, 

 while the second cloaks the ignorance of a 

 charlatan, who masquerades his nonsense 

 in the trappings of wisdom. Here you 

 have an illustration of the harmfulness of 

 this kind of language, which obscures 

 truth and falseness alike, to the degrada- 

 tion of science and the total confusion of 

 those of the unlearned who are searching 

 after information. 



Let the writer on scientific matters learn 

 the derivation of the words he uses and 

 then translate them literally into English 

 before he uses them, and thereby avoid the 

 unconscious talking of nonsense. If he 

 knows not the exact meaning of the terms 

 which offer themselves to his pen, let him 

 avoid them and trust to the honest aid of 

 his own language. ' Great part of the sup- 

 posed scientific knowledge of the day is 

 simply bad English, and vanishes the 

 moment you translate it,' says Ruskin. 

 The examples already given illustrate this. 

 ' Every Englishman has, in his native 

 tongue, an almost perfect instrument of 

 literary expression,' so says Pluxley, and 

 he illustrated his own saying. Huxley and 

 Ruskin were wide apart in many things 

 and yet they agreed in this. RusMn 

 proved abundantly that the language of 

 Shakespeare and the Bible can be used as 



a weapon of expression keen as a Damascus 

 saber when it is freed from the rust of 

 classic importations, which make it clumsy 

 as a crowbar. 



There is yet another reason against the 

 excessive use of Greek-English words, in 

 particular. Greece is not a remnant of ex- 

 tinct geography, but an existing land with 

 a very active people and a living language. 

 The terms wliich paleontology has bor- 

 rowed from the Greek may be returned by 

 the Greeks to us. And, as Ruskin points 

 out, ' ' "What you, in compliment to Greece 

 call a ' Dinotherium, ' Greece, in compli- 

 ment to you, must call a ' Nasty-beastium, ' 

 and you know the interchange of compli- 

 ments can't last long." 



In all seriousness, however, is it too 

 much to ask that such technical terms as 

 are considered essential shall not be used 

 carelessly, and that in publications in- 

 tended for an untechnical public, as are 

 most government reports, an effort be 

 made to avoid them and, where unavoid- 

 able, those which are least likely to be un- 

 derstood shall be translated in footnotes. 

 Even as regards the transactions of scien- 

 tific societies, I believe that those of us 

 who are active members have little to lose 

 and much to gain by confining the use 

 of our clumsy terminology to cover ideas 

 which we cannot otherwise express. By 

 doing so we shall contribute, I earnestly 

 believe, to that advancement of science 

 which we all have at heart. 



The words which, at first, are the ex- 

 clusive privilege of the specialist, gradually 

 extend into wider use, following in the 

 wake of that diffusion of scientific knowl- 

 edge which is one of the objects of this 

 Association. We believe that to get along- 

 side facts, to apply the best knowledge 

 available, to seek truth for its own sake, is 

 as essential to the well-being of the in- 

 dividual life as it is to the success of a 



