Category: Science Word Geek

When I think of the sciences, I first think of biology, physics, chemistry…the names of subjects you can take a high school class in. Here are some finer-...

One of the things I had to decide when I started this blog was how I was going to treat the word earth. Should I use earth or Earth? Do I need to use the word t...

The story of Scottish botanists Archibald Menzies, David Douglas, and the tree that bears both their names is a good example of the challenges of establishing e...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, common names, although rich in lore, are not always all that helpful for uniquely identifying an organism. They also don̵...

While we’re on the subject of meteors, what have meteors got to do with meteorology? It turns out that the link between meteors and meteorology is a Greek...

Sometimes words that describe the natural world come in a rather confusing clump. I’m hoping to explore many of these groups of words describing interrela...

Most of the time, names arise mysteriously out of the collective creativity of language. Common names for plants and animals are a very rich source of informati...

I edit scientific papers; although my background is in astronomy, geology papers may be my favorite. I love the lingo of geology—greywacke, gneiss, drumlin, pla...

Science Word Geek is where my interests in words and science converge. I have a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics and a lot of experience editing scientif...