Midland Naturalist/Volume 01/Scientific Names—I. Form

by William Bywater Grove

Scientific Names—I. Form.

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By W. E. Grove, B.A.

At the first birth of modern science, the names which it employed were generally, though not universally, formed in accordance with the recognised rules of the classical languages, but later times, when ab acquaintance with the classics is no invariable preliminary or accompaniment of scientific discovery, have given birth to a number of words, which are unclassical either in their form or their origin. This may not be a matter of much regret, since science flourishes equally well, whether its terms are of legitimate or barbarous formation, but on the other hand the attempt at accuracy in this respect can scarcely do it any injury. One might justly think it unworthy of a scientific man to descend to the level of the draper who manufactures "pectus expandus" braces, or the shoemaker who invents "pannus corium" leather. In the report of an establishment for the training of Naturalists, not long ago, it was said that those students who had previously received a classical training were always the less exact in their biological work; but it is by no means certain that this result was owing to their previous study. In fact, since accuracy is to a great extent a habit, which, like other habits, can be acquired, it would seem likely that those, who were most accurate in one study, would be so in any other in which they were equally interested.

The following remarks are meant for those who feel the want of some help and guidance in the matier of scientific nomenclature: but the subject is so extensive that only a small part of it can be touched upon here. What is to be said will be divided into two parts, the first concerning the form, the second concerning the pronunciation of scientific names. It is understood, of course, that the dictionary and lexicon can be consulted, when necessary, by the investigator; this is an essential requisite, but one in which there can be little difficulty. in these days of libraries, for any one. Most of the words, however. are not in the dictionary in their complete form, but require to be looked out piecemeal, and if is in this part of the work that help will be most needed. We must begin with a little elementary information.

In inflectional languages most of the words consist of two parts, (1) that which contains the root-idea or ideas, which is called the stem, and may itself be composed of more than one part, and (2) a termination, which has generally no meaning apart from the stem to which it is affixed. The termination may consist of one or more letters or syllables. An important rule is, that in all cases the stem of all the derivatives from any word should contain the true root of that word, which is some times net obvious. To illustrate what is meant, we will take the word chroma, the nominative case of a Greek word meaning "colour." The true root of this word is chromat--, the t having been dropped from the nominative ease, and when the Greeks wished to form a derivative from it, they world always use the true root as a stem; so they obtained chromat-feos, "relating to colour," from which we get chromatic, and we have also achromatism and chromatpgraphy. These are correctly formed, but when Vanquelin, in 1797, discovered a new metal, the compounds of which were remarkable for their varied colours, he called it chromium instead of chromatium, as it should be. More recently the coloured envelope of the sun has been called the chromosphere; it ought to be chromatosphere, and the reader may recollect the outcry which was raised against the word on this account at its first introduction. The generic name, Stromatopora, from stroma, is an instance of correct formation in a similar case. In the two instances just given the misformed words are firmly established, and a change is not only improbable, but perhaps not even desirable. But this is by no means a reason for forming fresh words incorrectly, and there are cases where two modes of spelling exist, when it becomes a question which should be preferred. Thus, there is a botanical genus Portulaca; of this word Portulac: is the stem, and -aceæ is the termination used to denote the whole assemblage of plants of which Portulaca is the type, consequently this Natural Order should be called Portulac-aceæ. In Balfour and the London catalegue this is done, put Bentham and Babington give the title as Portulaceæ, the second ac having been dropped. There is another genus Dipsacus, of which Dipsac- is the stem; its Natural Order should, therefore, be Dipsac-aceæ, and it is so given by Balfour and Babington, but the other two authorities unite in writing it Dipsaceæ. I am aware that there exists « possible explanation of this anomaly, in supposing the termination in these cases to be only -eæ, but it ought certainly to be -aceæ, and the explanation will not apply to the following case. The Natural Order containing Berberis should be named Berberid-aceæ, because the stem of the former word 1a Berborid-, as is seen in the analogous cases of Orchidaceæ from Orchis, Iridaceæ from Iris, and many others. Here Balfour, Babington, and others agree in using the true stem, but the London ctalogue gives Berberaceæ. It is a case of "doctors disagreeing," but a knowledge of the principles underlying those instances will enable the student to "decide" which Doctor it would be better to follow. The tendency is evidently to drop syllables which seem to he superfluous. There is curious instance of this in a branch of science, in which brevity of nomenclature is not now studied, in the name of formic acid. This acid was first obtained from the red ant, (Formica rufa,} and should have been culled formicic acid.

There is one role, which seems to be well established, and deserves particular notice, as it appears to conflict with that laid down above. In such words as Distoma and Leptothrix, the last components stoma and thrix are need in the nominative case, which does not here show the true stem. The reason is that no termination has been added in these cases: when, however, that is done, the true stem ought to appear, as in Distomatidæ (erroneously written Distomidæ) and Leptotrichum. It is, indeed, impossible to insist absolutely upon obedience to these rules; euphony must be consulted, and will occasionally give the preference to the loss correct form. Moreover, the ancients themselves sometimes failed to observe their own precedents. Thus from lapis, (stem, lapiid-,) "a stone," they obtained lapicida, "a stone-cutter," after which Linnæus named Helix lapicida; but from those who know what it ought to be it requires an effort not to write H. lapidicida, as has been in fact sometimes unconsciously done.

It may be useful to give an epitome of the chief Latin terminations, with the rules concerning them, so far as they concern our purpose. The genitive case, which answers to our possessive case, and means "of (a thing,)" is given as well as the nominative, because it is often required, as will be seen further on. In Latin, nouns are divided into five classes, called declensions, but only the first three of these are important to us, words belonging to the others being very rarely met with. Those belonging to the first declension and in -a and -e, and are feminine, or in -es, and are masculine; those of the second in -us and -er, and are masculine, {except names of trees in -us, as Fagus, which are always feminine,^[1]) or in -um, and are neuter. More than two-thirds of the nouns used in scientific nomenclature belong to these declensions; these are, therefore, the most important, and are also the easiest to understand.

The method of applying this and the following table is as follows:—Take away from the word the letters given in the first column; what remains is the stem, and to it must be added the respective letters given in the other columns. There is one exception; in words ending in -er, the r forms an essential part of the stem. As examples we may take fungus, a mushroom, fungi, of a mushroom, fungi, mushrooms, fungorum, of mushrooms, fung- being the stem; but in liber, a hook, libr- is the stem, as in library, The knowledge and application of these few facts alone would save many a blunder which now appears even in print. For instance, one of the commonest mistakes, so common that the Rev. M. J. Berkeley mentions it expressly in his "Outlines of British Fungology." is to say "a fungi." By what has been said, it will be seen that, Fungus the Latin plural of Fungus; it is as correct, therefore, to say "a Fungi," as it would be to say "a Funguses." One great source of error is the fact, that the singular of the first declension and the neuter plural of the second have the same ending -a. But to decide to which of these a word ending in -a belongs, it is only necessary to consider whether it is singular or plural. This would prevent such mistakes as to use ciliæ as the plural of cilia; so with septum and septa, infusorium and infusoria, phytozoön and phytozoa. The non-existent words infusoriæ and phytoaoœ may be seen in well-known chemical and botanical handbooks respectively.

Generic names are always nouns, and their gender, consequently, is invariable; specific names are mostly adjectives, and can then vary in gender, but otherwise they resemble nouns.

Adjectives.

Singular			Plural
m.			f.
-us	-a	-um	-i	-æ	-n
-er	-ra	-rum	-ri	-ræ	-ra

In the classical languages it was the rule that an adjective must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun to which it refers. Compare Raphanus maritimus, Crambe maritima, and Alyssum maritimum. Consequently, when a species is transferred from one genus to another of different gender, an adjectival specific name must be altered, if necessary, to correspond. Thus there is a plant called Leontodon hirtus. From this we see at once that Leontodon is masculine; but the plant is sometimes placed in the genus Thrineia, which is feminine; its name must then be Thrincia hirta. Some of the first men of science have occasionally neglected this, and produced monstrosities, by the side of which the botanist's pet name for a common roadside weed, Dockia roadsidum, would not appear utterly disreputable. It will be noticed that adjectives ending in -e? generally drop the c in the other gendors, as Orobus niger, Sambucus nigra, (because the elder is a tree,) Solanun nigrum; but those ending in -fer and -ger, as well as asper and lacer, ratain the e, as Sonehus asper, Chara aspera, and Gastridium lendigerum. Most of the names of the large divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms are adjectives, agreeing with some noun understood. Thus, nearly all the names of the Natural Orders of plants are feminine plural, agreeing with plantæ, plants, and those of animals, (except fishes.) neuter plural, agreeing with animalia, animals. Examples are Cruciferæ, cross-bearing plants, and Rotifera, wheel-bearing animals. Young students almost always forget the fact that these are plural, and talk of "a Runnnculaces," "a Polyzoa," &c., which are as bad as "a Fungi"? There is sometimes a difficulty in finding a suitable English singular for these words, but it must be done, and can be done in various ways, as a ranunculaceous plant, a crucifer, a polyzoon^[2], a rotifer, and so on.

 

To Be Continued.

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1. The chief example of a non-feminine name of a tree, except those ending in -um,) is Acer, a maple, which is neuter, e.g., Acer trilobatum. Names of large shrubs, or even of small trees, ending in ~us, as Euonymus, are made feminine or masculine according to taste; thus we meet with both Euonymus Europæa and Euonymus Europæus.
2. An erratum on page 149 reads "For "polyzoon," read "polyzoan," after the analogy of entomostracan, infusorian, &c." (Wikisource contributor note)