50 years ago
For some years Nature has been publishing communications in the form of commissioned articles or reviews, research articles and letters. Looking back further, however, one sees that this format has only been reached by an evolutionary process; indeed the early issues of Nature contained an extraordinary diversity of material which the editor did little to segregate. Quarrels, opinions, anagrams and observations of atmospheric phenomena rubbed shoulders with announcements of scientific progress. Presumably those with a serious message did not have as great an objection as present-day scientists would to their scientific wheat sitting amongst anecdotal chaff — probably because they knew that next time they wrote it was as likely as not to be an anecdote that they sent.
100 years ago
The word “Scientist” … [t]here is a prejudice against this word. Some profess etymological scruples; they say it is an ugly hybrid with a Latin root and a Greek termination. But surely this is not a serious objection or the one which really prevents its use. For the accusation is not true. The termination -ist is French, not Greek; if “scientist” had come from the French it would have been as unexceptionable as “artist,” which is an exact parallel … The real objection, I think, is different. “Scientist” was a doubtful neologism at a time when scientists were in trouble about their style. They were accused, with some truth, of being slovenly; and those who aimed at a higher standard were careful not to offer the slightest cause for offence. The word became a shibboleth. Matters have, however, now changed; we no longer need a shibboleth … [T]he word has arrived; there is no chance of suppressing it entirely ... Cumbrous circumlocutions, such as “man of science” — offensive to feminists and with an artificial air no artifice can conceal — are wretched substitutes. The idea is definite and important; the discovery that there is something common in the intellectual attitude of all the sciences and foreign to other branches of learning is one of the greatest advances made by the thought of the last century. For a new thing … we must have a new name … If you will not have “scientist,” at least provide us with some other single word.
