Nomenclature

Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net
Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:40:58 PDT
Jim S pointed out the change appropriate to the name derived from the
English name Mason: older books show masonorum, the preferred form now is
masoniorum.

Here's another discrepancy between older usage and current usage. In an
earlier post I made reference to words which have a different stem in the
oblique cases. What does that mean? In Latin and Greek, there are words
which have one stem for the nominative form and another stem for the other
cases. Thus, the Greek word for mouth is, in its Latinized form, stoma. But
the other cases (in the grammatical sense) of the word are based on the stem
stomat- . Compounds should be formed from this oblique stem, not the
nominative stem. 

Thus, in older books, you will see the family name Melastomaceae; the
preferred modern form is Melastomataceae. 

Jim McKenney
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where I'm wondering if some
of you think it's time for me to shut my big stoma. 


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