Suggestions to medical writers / by George M. Gould.

  • George M. Gould
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions to medical writers / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    law, and to be learned in any study of ten minutes of phonology or of etymology. Indeed, this is the very rea¬ son or mechanism of the development of one language out of another. But because this is true, it by no means follows that there is, will not be, must not be, any changes permitted in the printed language. The organism that dislikes change is very ill; the one that fights change is mori¬ bund ; the one that does not change is dead. Language is an organism,—and “tout est dit!” Hence that is not a true, genuine, wise, or real conservatism which resists all change. This extreme is as absurd as that of the fonetik revolutionists. We medio-tutissimus people are, of course, the sensible ones, and we are accomplishing something. A few years ago a brave fellow undertook to kill the ligatures ce and ce. There was a wild fluttering of scared wings, and dire were the croaks and prophecies and maledictions. Who to-day in medical writing writes haemorrhage in the United States? Two or three, who, for other reasons, are foaming at the mouth with personal hatred of the proposer and who would not ligature his arte¬ ries if hemorrhage were sure to be the death of him. The ligatures ce and ce are irritating to true English eyes and ears, as are all umlauts, and the rest of the misty, musty, nasal, cranky, throaty habits we formed while learning to talk, and especially while we were learning to speak Eng¬ lish. The sensible Englishman long ago began ridding his speech, written or spoken, of ce and ce, and we find our¬ selves in the thick of the process, pawing to get our hinder parts free. The pernickety sticklers cry in alarm, and mumble something about etymology, but they are like the passionate convert who, praying vehemently concerning his sins, checked himself with the thought, “ Not so loud, God might hear me.” So, the appeal to etymology must be made only to the ignorant. I do not know how many hun¬ dreds or thousands of good English words there are com¬ mencing withpre ; now what is sauce for the goose is sauce
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