Again, many Modern Latin names of taxa have -myces as the last component. The Greek is μύκης = myces in which the first vowel is definitely short. In these generic names the accent would seem properly to be on the antepenult, as Acti.no′my.ces and Strep.to′my.ces. The commonly accepted accentuation is Ac.ti.no.my′ces and Strep.to.my′ces.
There is also some confusion relative to syllabication and accentuation in Modern Latin names of taxa ending in -oides. The derivation of the ending makes it evident that the oi is not a diphthong, and the o and i should be differentiated and separately pronounced. For example, the generic name Bacteroides should be syllabicated and accented Bac.te.ro.i′des. There has been confusion with the English diphthong oi, and pronunciation with one less syllable, Bac.te.roi′des, has been recognized.
Abbreviations. The following areviations are used in the Manual in giving derivations.
Gr. = Greek. The original Greek spelling is not given in the Manual. As noted above, the word is transliterated into the Latin alphabet; the gender endings of the Greek are changed usually to the Latin gender endings of the corresponding Latin declension. This makes evident the stems[1] that may be used in construction of the Modern Latin names. Gr. means latinized Greek.
L. = Latin. Usually this indicates that the word is one used in classic Latin (or in some cases post-classic Latin) and found in an unabridged Latin dictionary.
M.L. = Modern Latin. A word used as the name of a taxon or as a specific epithet, to be treated and used as a Latin word, of various derivations but not classic Latin.
Med. L. = Medieval (sometimes pharmaceutical) Latin. Many words derived from languages other than Latin were Latinized during the middle ages and utilized in fields such as pharmacy, alchemy and biology. Some Modern Latin names are derived from these.
| fem. = feminine gender. | n. = noun. |
| mas. = masculine gender. | part. adj. = participial adjective. |
| neut. = neuter gender. | v. = verb. |
| part. = participle. | nom. = nominative. |
| adj. = adjective. | gen. = genitive. |
pl. = plural. Note that the names of all taxa higher than the genus are plural and have plural endings, as Bacillaceae, Actinomycetales.
- ↑ The stem to be used in making compounds is not always complete in the nominative. It is found by dropping the genitive ending. For example, the generic name Actinomyces has as the genitive, Actinomycetis; the stem used in compounds is Actinomycet-, hence the family name derived from Actinomyces is Actinomycetaceae, not Actinomycaceae. Note should be taken of the fact that all Greek words that end in -ma are neuter and have as genitive -matis. The stem combining form always ends in mat. For example Treponema, gen. Treponematis, has as its stem Treponemat- from which one may derive a family name Treponemataceae (not Treponemaceae).
