There have also been rules for the uniform spelling of chemical terms formulated and adopted by the Section of Chemistry of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and of geographic names, by the permanent Board on Geographic Names*. The forms recommended by both of these bodies have been adopted by the editor of the Standard Dictionary.

Punctuation, which is sometimes considered as coming under the head of Orthography, is, in its broadest sense, the art of dividing literary compositions by points or stops to show more clearly the sense, and the relation of the words. If a sentence consisted of a simple statement only, with just sufficient words to express a single idea, the only mark of punctuation needed would be a period at the end. But when the statement is compounded and complicated by modifiers and conditions, there arises the necessity for some sort of device that will clearly indicate the divisions and the relationship of the different parts. Such a need is supplied by the various marks of punctuation. Their proper use is partly a matter of custom and partly just common sense. Custom should be observed, if only to prevent the appearance of eccentricity on the part of the writer. It is not in the province of this book to give detailed

The report of this board, containing a complete list of these spellings, can be obtained at a small cost from the Public Printer, Washington, D. C.

rules for the use of the various marks of punctuation-the comma, semicolon, colon, period, etc. These details can be found in any work of grammar and in many other books, and it should only be necessary here to say that great care should be exercised in their use. Their proper use enables the writer to make his meaning clear; their omission or misuse-even of a comma-may render a sentence obscure and ambiguous. For instance, in the discussion of a certain accident:

"The engineer said the contractor was a man not to be depended upon."

Here the contractor is certainly the guilty party, but by the insertion of two commas, the tables are turned against the engineer:

"The engineer, said the contractor, was a man not to be depended upon."

The engineer who is called upon to write reports, contracts, and specifications may, as has often been the case, by a misplaced mark, involve himself in a lawsuit. In literary work, such as books and periodical articles, if errors are made in a contribution otherwise acceptable, the editor will correct them, according to his prescribed policy, but this revision should properly be done by the writer. A badly punctuated, badly spelled, and badly written composition always stands less chance of acceptance than one containing even less valuable matter, but carefully prepared for an editor's examination.

IV

WORDS AND PHRASES

Words-single parts of speech, or combinations of sounds, expressing ideas-and Phrases -two or more words forming particular modes of speech, or Idioms, and as a unit, expressing a single idea-are among the most potent instruments at the command of man, and of the writer in particular. By their proper use the engineer makes clear his meaning to clients and contractors, convincing one of the wisdom of his propositions and binding the other to execute them. Through the improper or careless use of. words, the engineer lessens his chances of making himself understood by clients and contractors, and provides loopholes for the latter to evade their obligations, and may even bring ultimate confusion upon himself. If these statements are true of words and phrases in general, how much more true are they when applied to specialized technical terms!

There is unquestionably much carelessness displayed by engineers and engineering writers in their use of terms to designate specific engineering ideas. So many lawsuits have centered around the meaning of some technical, or even non-technical word, that they now

excite no particular interest, and we are likely to skim over the abstracts of such cases with little thought that our own use of words is seldom commendable for its perfect absence of ambiguity. We speak of "dirt roads" when we mean "earth roads," and see no danger signal in our perversion of the word "dirt"; we also speak of the "inauguration of a plant" when we mean the "installation of a plant. In a word, we unconsciously use metaphorical, inaccurate, and involved expressions so frequently that we are ever in danger of being vague when we wish to be precise. In most cases, it is true, the context is such as to prevent any misunderstanding as to the idea intended; but this is only scant justification for the careless use of words, for the reader must then gather from several words or sentences the idea which should have been conveyed by a single term.

The Basis of Engineering Terminology. A misspelled or wrongly interpreted word may result in serious consequences, even in a death, and partly for this reason, and partly on account of the unchanging nature of matters pertaining to medicine and surgery, medical terms have been standardized. These usually apply to certain scientific facts, and have been given Latin names which convey the same understanding to medical men in all parts of the country, regardless of localisms. But in

38

ENGINEERING LITERATURE

order to use and understand engineering t correctly, the establishment of a precise of such terms, to be followed in all enginee writings, is not necessary. In fact, the me of the development of engineering termino and its status at any one time does not pe of this. The objects and phenomena which engineers deal are in most cases specialized scientific facts, to be given L names and discussed in abstruse langu rather they are things with which men in eral are more or less familiar, and to which many cases, they have already given na When the engineer comes to deal with th he generally takes over the word that is ready in the language, but he may later ext its meaning to cover analogous ideas, or may restrict it to a specialized phase of original idea, to suit his needs. When word in its final meaning thus develo comes into general acceptance among e neers, it forms part of recognized engineer terminology. There are always many te still in progress of formation or developme different writers use them differently, and t usually also have an established meaning our general vocabulary, but it is desirable t the technical use of the word should follow closely as possible its more general use; modification of its meaning for technical p poses must be arrived at gradually.