Some interesting facts behind terminology

The scientific terminology that we study today has some interesting background. The scientific words that we come across in books of science have their strange and meaningful origins. The elements are mostly named after the name of their country or deceased scientists.

Madam Curie discovered the element 84. She was called Marie Sklodowska before her marriage. She belonged to Poland that is why the element she discovered was named on her native land as ‘Polonium’. In 1886, a German scientist discovered element 32. He gave it the name on his country as Germanium, which was the clear sign of his love and patriotism for his country. The element Americium was named after America because the group of scientists who discovered it belonged to US. Similar was the case with Francium 87, which was discovered by a French scientist in 1939.

Kangaroo is the name of the most famous Australian animal among the mammals. Its name holds an interesting story behind it. In 1770, an English researcher James Cook reached Australia in his ship. He saw a strange animal there with a bag near its breast. When he asked the name of that wonderful animal the natives say ’Kangaroo’ which was meant for ‘what are you saying’? The visitors took it as the name of this animal. Thus, the misunderstanding gave a new name to animal that spread all over the world.

M.A and B.A degrees, which our universities bestow to their students, are related with some interesting facts. Our colleges today teach different subjects as sciences, national and international languages, history, literature, economics, sociology, and political sciences. All these subjects called liberal arts. In ancient times, these liberal arts were seven in number, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. The first four branches were the most important and were called quadrivium. It is a Latin word, which means the place where four roads meet. The other three branches were of less importance and were named trivium, which means the point where three roads meet.  The students who got enough skill in these branches of knowledge were given the degree of Master of Arts. Our universities give M.A degree in the continuation of this tradition. The word master came from Latin word ‘magister’ means a great specialist. The man holding low degree skill was Bachelor of Arts. The word bachelor first stood for ‘Knight Squire’ a man who worked under knight.

Hemophilia is the name of disease in which bleeding does not stops even after a slight scratch on the body till the death of the patient. The name is derived from the two Greek words ‘haima’ means blood and ‘philia’ means to like. In last century, members of the two Royal families became victim of the disease. The first was the son of Zar of Russia and the second were the sons of the king of Spain Alphonso x111. This disease was given large-scale coverage by the newspapers and it was named as Royal Disease. The research revealed the source of the disease was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria for the princes of Spain. The son of Zar’s disease was rooted in Queen’s second daughter Alice. It is a sex-related disease if male is victim of this fatal disease he is unable to transfer it in the next generation but the female carrier can do this.