Latin Grammar Headaches

The use of the English language for the exchange of scientific information has greatly contributed to the advancement of sciences in the last century. Latin, for many centuries the language of science, is unable to compete with a worldwide and living language such as English. However, the use of Latin in the binomial nomenclature introduced by C. von Linné retains its standing in taxonomy.

For those of us who studied, for many years and with difficulty, Latin at school, it has been difficult to accept the English pronunciation of Latin names of genera and species and the creation of doubtful Latin terms like “longbeachae.” What cannot be tolerated, however, is grammatical mistakes. I refer here to the name Mycobacterium visibilis proposed in the very interesting paper by Appleyard and Clark (1). The neuter form “visibile” should be used in conjunction with “Mycobacterium.”