Re: Chicago Botanic
> Meant to pick up on this earlier, Donna. Chicago, Denver, and the U.S.
> all have botanic gardens. Everyone else seems to prefer the prolix
> "botanical." Reminds me of the health nudniks who prefer "preventative"
> to preventive. Like, making it longer and dumber makes it more
> important.
Or people who work in the horticulture industry and refer to themselves as
horticulturalists... No! It's horticulturists! Maybe it's a deep sense
of inadequacy by these folks. They don't want to the noun as the root, so
they cover their butts by using an adjective form.
Then when their plants die they can argue that they didn't claim to be people
who practiced horticulture; rather they were *like* people who practiced
horticulture (so it's OK).
Of course, if I follow this logic botanical garden might be a better term
than botanic garden, since most of them seem to have strayed from a primary
purpose based in botany to whatever brings in the bucks... Maybe that's
why Merriam-Webster now recognizes 'botanical garden' as a valid term!
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=botanic&x=0&y=0
:)
Chris
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