Scientific Terminology not always Linguistically Correct

In late July, this column carried a tongue-in-cheek article pointing out some of the artistic liberties, or "poetic license," that have been taken with the facts in order to tell a more interesting story. One example was that the 1960 movie featuring John Wayne and Stewart Granger centered around a mining claim which, as the title song declared, was located "just a little southeast of Nome." Most Alaska residents are aware that there's no mountain there, but a lot of sea water.

This amuses scientists, who try to record the facts accurately and without bias, but at the same time, professional writers look with a certain amount of bemusement upon the liberties that scientists often take with the English language (or any other language, for that matter).

Take the word "permafrost," for example. Although this is a word familiar to anyone who has lived in the north for a year or two, it makes no sense when divided into its generic components. Although it may "frost" a good many workers in the field, Wilson Follet directs an "icy" blast at the coiners of the word in the book Modern American Usage. "This mongrel word," he says, "is a good example of the passion for Latinizing in persons who do not know Latin and who declare it dead and useless."

Apparently, whoever coined the word thought that "perma" signified "permanence" or "permanent." If they'd looked a bit closer, they would have noticed that the prefix is not complete without the "n" added at the end. In fact, "per" is simply an intensive, while "man" (from Latin "maneon") is the same sense-bearing root meaning "to stay." "Perma" chops off the last letter of the syllable which would have given the word a real meaning. Why didn't scientists use "permanfrost," which is logical and systematic--in short, scientific? Probably because it just didn't sound right. Poetic license?

Scientists would have done better to simply find an ordinary English prefix for the English word "frost." Follet suggests "steadyfrost" as being "equal in length, English throughout, and intelligible at sight." Not as familiar-sounding as "permafrost" is now, certainly, but more accurate.