this subject, suffice it to remark, that when we admit terms of art or science to participate in the rights of citizens, they should put on our garb, and adopt our manners. If this rule had always been observed, our language would not have been deformed with innumerable barbarisms, which learned and unlearned ignorance have joined to introduce among us; and which nothing but the constant habit of speaking or hearing them, can ever reconcile to our ears[1].
It would be easy to add many more observations, but it is not my design to exhaust the subject. I have addressed these cursory remarks to you, Sir, as being at the head of a society, one of whose principal views is to promote English Botany; in hopes that some member of the society, who has more leisure than myself, may turn his thoughts to the subject, and handle it so fully, that all of us who are engaged in the same pursuit, may speak the same language.
I am,
Park Prospect, Westminster
October 5, 1789.
SIR, &c.
- ↑ Such are per cent, per-annum, per-pound, and per-post; ipso facto, minutiæ, data, errata, in vacuo, vice versa, plus et minus, vis inertiæ, in equilibrio, jet-d'eau, aqua fortis, aqua vitæ, ignis fatuus, cæteris paribus; equivoque, critique, je-ne-sçai-quoi, sçavoir-vivre, outré, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.—It should seem that the mercantile world, the learned world, and the fashionable world, had formed a conspiracy to debase our sterling English by ill-made terms, affectedly introduced without the least necessity.
XVI. Ob-
