524 
Editorial. 
(  Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
i         August,  1920. 
The  medical  and  chemical  journals  of  America  have  declined  to 
adopt  the  more  radical  changes  in  spelling  that  have  been  advo- 
cated. The  principal  modifications  that  some  of  these  have  adopted 
have  been  the  substituting  of  "f"  for  "ph"  in  such  words  as  sulphur 
and  in  dropping  the  silent  "e"  in  words  ending  in  "ide,"  "ine,"  etc. 
These  modifications  are  not  uniformly  carried  out  in  these  scientific 
journals  nor  are  they  universally  approved  of  or  follow^ed  by  the 
members  of  the  scientific  and  professional  organizations  represent- 
ing these  vocations.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  journals  covering 
the  other  technical,  scientific  and  professional  fields. 
The  conservative  spirit  actuating  the  medical,  pharmaceutical 
and  chemical  professions  and  the  adherence  of  the  representatives 
of  these  to  the  established  rules  of  spelling  was  shown  by  an  inci- 
dent that  occurred  at  the  Decennial  Pharmacopoeial  Convention  held 
in  Washington  in  May.  The  word  "pharmacopoeia"  is  admittedly 
a  difficult  word  to  spell  and  has  been  at  times  misspelled  even  in 
official  literature  relating  to  the  pharmacopoeial  conventions.  Yet 
when  a  motion  was  offered  to  drop  the  second  "o"  in  the  spelling  of 
the  word  "pharmacopoeia"  it  was  howled  down  and  the  preponder- 
ance of  sentiment  against  dropping  this  silent  "o"  was  quite  in  evi- 
dence. 
It  is  doubtful  if  very  many  of  the  followers  of  these  so-called  "re- 
forms in  spelling"  have  given  any  real  serious  thought  to  the  portent 
and  the  influence  that  the  success  of  the  changes  advocated  might 
possibly  have  upon  our  language  or  even  upon  the  nation  itself. 
Roget  has  stated  some  of  the  important  functions  of  language 
in  the  following  pertinent  abstracts: 
"The  writer,  as  well  as  the  orator,  employs  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  his  purpose  the  instrumentality  of  words;  it  is  in  words 
that  he  clothes  his  thought;  it  is  by  means  of  words  that  he  depicts 
his  feelings  *  *  *  *  Words  are  the  instrumentalities  by 
which  we  form  all  our  abstractions,  by  which  we  fashion  and  embody 
our  ideas,  and  by  which  we  are  enabled  to  glide  along  a  series  of 
premises  and  conclusions  with  a  rapidity  so  great  as  to  leave  in 
the  memory  no  trace  of  the  successive  steps  of  the  process;  and  we 
remain  unconscious  of  how  much  we  owe  to  this  potent  auxiliary 
of  the  reasoning  faculty.  ***** 
"It  is  of  the  utmost  consequence  that  strict  accuracy  should 
regulate  our  use  of  language,  and  that  every  one  should  acquire  the 
power  and  the  habit  of  expressing  his  thoughts  with  perspicuity 
