Mojo in science. Latin continues to expand its vocabulary.

[Jonathan Lighter]

I believe I mentioned the mite once before, but if not or even so:

"[T]axonomists have been amusing themselves quietly for years, as names such
as *Colon rectum* (a beetle),* Ba humbugi* (a snail), *Oedipus complex* (a
salamander) and *Ytu brutus* (a beetle) attest. Besides, how much disrepute
could commerce really bring to the discipline that brought the world
*Trombicula
fujigmo*, a mite whose name is an acronym for “fuck you Jack, I got my
orders.” "

(Qitd. by Mark Liberman at _Language Log_, 2006:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002833.html)

JL


On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Mojo in science. Latin continues to expand its
> vocabulary.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> > also "Afro-American"?
>
>
> No worse tha using a French surname combined with a word of
> Native-American origin, e.g. as in
>
> "Nicot[iana] tabac[um]"
>
> I reckon.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
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