Re: The case of the Hebrew word for "oxygen"...

In article
<50e03cf0-e374-46e5-b781-7284a02ca774@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
António Marques <entonio@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 10, 7:12 pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

4 - In a scientific matter such as this, the person would be expected
to avoid the misnomer, either correcting it or choosing a different
path altogether.

I don't see why anyone should believe that 4 is true. As has been
pointed out numerous times, there are plenty examples of scientists
being less than scientifically rigorous when coming up with names
(quarks, the dwarf planet Eris, various plant and animal taxonomic
names, etc.).

It hasn't got to do with rigour. 'Quarks' and the like are just not
expected to be interpretable,

What about "strange quarks", "up quarks", etc.? I'm not saying that
"quark" itself should be interpretable, but surely "strange" would be.
And yet, there's nothing particularly strange about strange quarks (at
least, not distinctive from other quarks!).

so the misnomer issue doesn't arise at
all. And it's possible to call a plant with red flowers 'caerulea',
but unless there is a reason for it, it just comes across as dumb. Of
course no one said it's *forbidden*.

Like calling a rodent from the Andes a "Guinea pig"? Or a bird a
"titmouse"?

Names are just labels---they need not be accurate descriptions as well.

Who said they needed?

Anyone who says that avoiding misnomers is expecting in naming
implicitly says so.

Next thing you know, some french guy will coin the term 'phonophobe'
to label people who love sound, and you'll be happy to carry it over
to english because, after all, what's in a name.

Indeed, what is in a name? Consider, for example, homophobia,
hysteria, lunatic, ventriloquism, Chinese checkers, American Indians,
Gothic architecture, the Holy Roman Empire, ...

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
.