Abstract
I HAVE been long accustomed to register the first appearance of new words and phrases. Of course the vast majority of these take no root, perishing where they fall. Here is a sample of the latest issue: Survival, introduced, I think, by Darwin; indiscipline and impolicy, which were brought in by the Franco-Prussian War, and also the vulgarism to telegram. The greatest atrocities in this line are committed by “physicists,” if the shade of Faraday will pardon me the use of that word; and far away the worst coinage I ever encountered is due to Mr. Alfred R. Wallace. As it is “meet and right and our bounden duty” to stigmatise such intruders, and if possible prevent their adoption, I take the liberty of making my feeble protest against Mr. Wallace's “prolificness,” which he introduces to our notice in his letter on Mr. Howorth (NATURE, July 6, 1871, p. 181). In this case the hideousness of the coinage is some guarantee against its reception.
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INGLEBY, C. Recent Neologisms. Nature 4, 201 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004201b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004201b0
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