Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 1 (1791).djvu/198

148 adopted it as a favourite amusement; it is become necessary to have a language that shall be suitable to every rank and condition, a language that may be incorporated into the general fund, and carry with it the proper marks of the mother tongue into which it is to be received.

In order to attain this desirable end, I beg leave, Sir, to submit to your consideration, and to that of the society over which you preside, these two fundamental principles: First, that we should adhere as closely as possible to the Linnean language itself: and secondly, that we should adapt the terminations, plurals, compounds and derivatives, to the structure and genius of our sterling English.

That we ought to adopt the Linnean terms themselves, is sufficiently apparent from the great advantage resulting from the use of one universal language. If we change or translate these terms, we lose all this advantage, and become unintelligible to botanists of every other nation, without any benefit gained on the other hand: for these new terms will be equally difficult even to the English student; and will require as much explanation as the Latin or Greek, many of which have prescription and possession to plead in their defence. To load the science and our English tongue with a useless addition of new words, is certainly an evil to be avoided.

Thus, for instance, in the parts of fructification, if we adopt the terms empalement, blossom, chive, thread, tip, pointal, seed-bud, shaft, summit, they require explanation, in their appropriate sense, as much as calyx, corolla, stamen, filament, anthera, pistullum or pistil, germen or germ, style and stigma, which are already familiar to the ears of all who have studied the science of Botany, even though they have little or no acquaintance with the learned languages. For the same reasons legume is to be preferred to shell or cod, siliqua or silique to pod, silicle to pouch, glume to husk or chaff, culm to straw, digitate to fingered, ovate to egged, pinnatifid to feather-cleft. Some