The Production of New Scientific Terms

Abstract

rTH E CURRENT EXPLOSION of scientific knowledge is having considerable linguistic effect as the need to communicate new concepts forces the devising of new terms. question of what methods are being employed to meet this need is one of importance to anyone concerned with lexicology. In Vocabulary of Science, Lancelot Hogben (1970, pp. 144-55) advocates the traditional methods of coining scientific terms from appropriate Greek and Latin roots. He chastises modern scientists for fostering invasion by words whose build-up has no intelligible rationale [which therefore] threatens the past and future vocabulary of science. But since few contemporary scientists are either classical scholars or linguists and since the newer fields of science do not have a strong tradition of resorting to ancient languages, it is not surprising that classical sources are being superseded by others. Preliminary investigation shows that, in at least some fields, twentieth century scientists are indeed making full and often imaginative use of the many other resources available for augmenting their vocabularies. terminology of sub-atomic physics provides fascinating evidence of the new freedom in word coinage. For example, the terms hadron and lepton refer to two classes of atomic particles. Both words are quite traditionally formed from Greek roots plus the suffix -on, meaning'particle,' which is also of Greek origin, derived from ion. However, boson, also a name for a class of atomic particles, is only semitraditional. Coined in honor of S. N. Bose, it was formed by attaching the suffix -on to a modern proper name. There is a total break with tradition in the origin of the term the accepted designation for a cross-sectional area of 10-24 square centimeters. Barn was humorously taken from the expression big as a barn, and logically enough, the 10-24th part of a barn has become known as a shed. Recently quark has been added to the lexicon of physics as the name of a newly hypothesized atomic particle. Quark was coined by Murray Gell-Mann, who explained its derivation during an appearance on Nigel Calder's 1977 BBC television production The Key to the Universe: The mathematics clearly called for a set of underlying elementary objects-at that time we needed three types of them-elementary ob101