Dr. Stephen Russell, instructional assistant for the Department of Greek and Roman Studies, discusses the complications that arise with recent changes in Latin anatomical terminology for the online magazine The Conversation. The article, titled New language guidelines for anatomy aim to improve clarity, but they could reduce understanding instead, looks at the impact of the disappearance of the word musculus (muscle) from the second edition of the Terminologia Anatomica (TA2), which is the official list of Latin anatomical terms produced by the Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology (FIPAT). This change results in more compact Latin terms used by anatomists, but Dr. Russell argues that shortened phrases, “can create massive problems when applied to the names intended for a global audience.”

This article can be viewed on the McMaster University Brighter World website here.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.