Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/458

426 On the one hand, the man who has had the trouble of examining and describing a species has much more right to be regarded as the "author" than one who has merely suggested a name. On the other hand, an author should not be deprived of his credit because his work happens to be incorporated in another man's publication. The majority of the Commission append a recommendation—for it can scarcely be intended for a rule—that the name of the author should follow the specific name "without the interposition of a comma." There is nothing to be said against this except that sometimes an author's name may come into a ludicrous combination with an uncomplimentary remark intended for the Snake, or the Cockroach, or some other low-minded species. Another recommendation, posing as a rule, prescribes the use of italics for distinguishing between the names of the species and the name of the author. It would be better to proscribe italics than to prescribe them. They are less legible than many other forms of type, and, as old books show, they are the worst in wear.

Coming now to the recommendations, specified as such, the third deals at great length with words which may be taken as generic names, and mentions first: "a. Greek substantives, for which the rules of Latin transcription should be followed." Many examples are given.

In regard to transcription, a word may be said in behalf of the English-speaking peoples. Our pronunciation vividly accentuates the difference between a long vowel and a short one, yet we have but one symbol for both sounds throughout our vowel system. There is nothing in the form of the letters to prevent a man's saying Amphibōla, Hydrophīlus, or Hippopotāmus. How much the young have suffered through false quantities is an untold sum of human misery. But they harass not boys alone. Of university men who acted classical plays in his day, Milton says bluntly, "They mispronounced, and I misliked; and, to make up the atticism, they were out, and I hissed." The men he derided were victims to tortures of the tongue, which, as far as speakers are concerned, "The bad affright, afflict the best."

Long ago an absurdly simple remedy was proposed for application to scientific names. It directed that the penultimate syllable of a name should be accented when that syllable is long,