| THE STORY OF A WORD—MAMMAL. |
By Dr. THEO. GILL,
WASHINGTON D. C.
THE time for the final consideration of words commencing with M for the great English Dictionary is now very near at hand, and I venture to offer suggestions respecting one in very general use whose etymology has been misunderstood and erroneously stated in all the published English and American dictionaries; that word is mammal or mammals. I have already explained the significance of the word in a periodical devoted mainly to ornithology (The Osprey), but probably few readers of The Popular Science Monthly are acquainted with that magazine and the data are here given in another form, and with many additional facts.
In the great Century Dictionary, a deservedly esteemed work, and which may generally be implicitly trusted, the etymology of mammalia is given as 'NL. (sc. animalia), neut. pi. of LL. mammalis (neut. sing. as noun, mammale), of the breast: see mammal,' and, under mammal, we have 'a. and n. [ OF. mammal Sp. mamal Pg. mamal, mammal It. mammale, n.; < NL. mammale, a mammal, neut. of LL. mammalis, of the breast, <L. mamma, the breast].'
All this is misleading, if not erroneous. The name mammalia was first coined and used by Linnæus in 1758, and was formed directly from the Latin; it had nothing to do with French, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian words. The concept of which the Linnæan word is the expression is as remote from a popular notion as could well be, and even the necessity for the word (or an analogous one) can be appreciated really only by the educated or, pro tanto, the scientifically educated. Buff on and Pennant, for example, could not realize the reason for its use.
It is noteworthy that in the Century Dictionary even the very word that might have given the clue to the formation of mammal is cited and yet the excellent professional etymologist who worked on it was not guided into the right path. With the hint given to him, he failed to see the point. Evidently, then, the etymology is not as obvious as it might seem to be.
Often, indeed, in looking over etymologies, we have been impressed with the insufficiency of philological learning alone for the solution of knotty questions. A living knowledge of the objects named is often
