Abstract
THE above reflexions arise from a perusal of a letter addressed to the scientific Press by the editor of Photographic Abstracts, entitled "Microphotography and Photomicrography, and other Terminological Inexactitudes". Although these two terms, signifying the production of very small photographs and the photographic reproduction of very small objects, respectively, are clear enough to experts, they are confusing to other people, and one can support the author's plea for the standardization of these and similar terms. 'Micro-' and 'macro-', he suggests, should be used in photography with a definite quantitative meaning only, and one might go farther and suggest that when these prefixes are used for scientific words, they should bear a precise quantitative meaning, as in microgram and microhm, leaving their vaguer signification to popular words like microcosm, macrocosm and perhaps 'micro-cookery' (the cooking of war-time rations). The word 'radiogram' is one that needs immediate attention, as it has three distinct meanings: (1) a combination of radio-receiver and gramophone, (2) a telegram transmitted by radio, and (3) an X-ray photograph (also called a radiograph or a skiagraph). Probably (3) would be best for scientific use. The word 'radio' itself might be banned from scientific writing, for, at least etymologieally, it might refer to any kind of radiation. But such difficulties as these are not to be solved offhand; they would best be considered by an authoritative body, as suggested above.
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Photographic Terminology. Nature 153, 218 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153218c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153218c0