The Word “Scientist” or its Substitute

Abstract

REGARDING the inquiry contained in your letter, I would say that the word “scientist” has fully established itself in the written and spoken language of scientific workers as well as of non-scientific persons. It is, of course, when one stays to examine it, a hybrid, but like that other hybrid, the mule, it does useful work. After all, there are numbers of hybrid words in our language also doing useful work, and one does not now trouble to look them in the mouth. For example, take the Latin stems with the Greek terminationist. The psychologists do not blush to use the word “animist”; they even say “behaviourist.” In my opinion, “scientist” is a gentle-born word alongside of “behaviourist,” which may well have besmirched the pages of NATURE.