4 ms·
Though obviously it's not the reason it was adopted, it is kind of neat that using a dead language for scientific terms disambiguates them cleanly for the purpo
by geoelectric 12y ago
Though obviously it's not the reason it was adopted, it is kind of neat that using a dead language for scientific terms disambiguates them cleanly for the purposes of searching.
Any live language would have accidental matches (even quoted) where it's just the obvious thing to say, a la "born without a cerebellum".
- beambot 12y agoTo expand on that... it also solves the problem of technical terms evolving new nomenclature (or new meanings for old nomenclature!) over time.
- jkdsfhkssfhjk 12y agonot a dead language.. greek language is still alive and indeed it sounds like "born without a cerebellum" (but to be fair the syntax reminds of medical term)
- zarriak 12y agoLatin is a dead language, there has not been a native speaker for a very long time[1]. [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death
- lotsofmangos 12y agoIt is still in constant use as the official language of the Vatican. They keep having to invent new Latin words and phrases so they can discuss things like hotpants, which are brevíssimae bracae femíneae apparently. Have a look here - http://usvsth3m.com/post/95991771713/hotpants-flirt-and-other-new-latin-words-invented http://usvsth3m.com/post/95991771713/hotpants-flirt-and-othe... The cashpoint with Latin in comic-sans is awesome. edit - translating from the latin, comic-sans is a pretty accurate font name.