72 LAWS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



names. ThesOj like our proper names, are to serve in all 

 languages. No doubt some names of cultivated plants, 

 or of such, as are very well known, are found more current 

 in common language than botanical names ; and it would be 

 ridiculous, for instance, in an English text, always to say 

 ' quercus' instead of ' oak.' Laying aside such cases, nothing 

 can be naore convenient than Latin names, used with or 

 without some slight modification. The public adopts them 

 promptly, even if they be eccentric. It is a matter of habit. 

 No one can object to names such as Fuchsia, Rhododen- 

 dron, etc., now in common use in all countries. 



There are in every language names of plants the mean- 

 ing of which is not very precise, or which are so seldom used, 

 that the greater part of the inhabitants of the country are 

 unacquainted with them. It is best not to make use of 

 them in books, but rather to habituate the public to names 

 taken from the universal tongue. 



68. With still greater reason ought the fabrication of 

 names termed vulgar names, totally different from Latin 

 ones, to be proscribed. The public to whom they are ad- 

 dressed derive no advantage from them, because they are 

 novelties. Lindley^'s work, ' The Vegetable Kingdom,' would 

 have been better relished in England had not the author 

 introduced into it so many new English names, that are to 

 be found in no dictionary, and that do not preclude the 

 necessity of learning with what Latin names they are syno- 

 nymous. A tolerable idea may be given of the danger of too 

 great a multiplicity of vulgar names, by imagining what 

 geography would be, or, for instance, the Post-office admi- 

 nistration, supposing every town had a totally different name 

 in every language. 



