The following message is a revised version correcting numerous errors of
typing, stylistic, and memory. Aslo, the original message included italic
type and Greek alphabetic type which was not transmitted via e-mail.

In a message dated 8/1/99 10:31:22 AM, Formanex writes:

>Do we know why it is natural history and not natural science?
>
>A few quotes from the Oxford English Dictionary:
>
>History....[ad. L. historia a narrative of past events, account, tale, story,
>a. Gr. istoria, a learning or knowing by inquiry, an account of one's
inquiries,
>narrative, history, f. istwr, istor- knowing, learned, wise man,
judge,:-*Fistor,
>f. Fis, is -to know. (The form histoire was from F.) Cf. STORY, an aphetic
>form of history.
>
>5. A systematic account (without reference to time) of a set of natural
>phenomena, as those connected wtih a country, some division of nature or
>group of natural objects, a species of animals or plants, etc. Now rare,
>exc. in NATURAL HISTORY.
>[In this sense following the similar use of istoria by Aristotle and other
>Greek writers, and of historia by Pliny.]
>
>My notes:
>1. I didn't know all that.
>2. F is a typographic approximation for the digamma, an archaic Greek letter
corresponding
>to sound w. Is Gk. istoria cognate with L. quaestio,  inquiry? Fis--that is
the same as German Wissen, to know. That curious little w is an approximation
for lower case omega.
>3. F. in the second usage is an abbreviation for French, of course.
>4. Aphetic: The loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a
>word. Because it is so frequent in English, the term was introduced at
>the suggestion of an OED editor in 1880.
>5. Natural History is the title of a work by the late sculptor (and one
>of my teachers) Richard Stankiewicz, which at least used to be on permanent
exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.
>6. The OED is an great source of quotes for, among other terms, incubus,
>succubus. If you could hold up the heavy tome (along with the magnifying
>lens), it'd make great bedtime reading. Suggest you photocopy (and ENLARGE).
>

I hope everything is clearer now.

>David Formanek
>Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum
>USS Constitution Museum
>
>Affiliations listed for identification purposes only. Opinions contained
>in this e-mail are the writer's own.
>
>

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