It is argued by some that “glaciology” has come to mean the study of glaciers, but the Latin glacies denotes ice and it cannot be right to appropriate the word for a single branch of the wide range of ice study. Neither do the Germans use Glaciologie nor the French Glaciologie in this restricted sense.
It is of course unfortunate that the Greek word for ice, κρύσταλλος, which in the sixteenth century was also the correct English word for that substance, has come to have another meaning and has now been acquired for another science, but it is too late to be reproachful about that now.
An objection has been raised to linking the Latin glacier to the Greek λόγος and one or two highly ingenious alternatives have been offered to satisfy the mind of the protesting purist. But it seems a pity to introduce a new word when we already have one which has been in use for so long.
We have had the word “Glaciology” for many years. Wright and Priestley, in the great treatise on the whole study of snow and ice which they made in the years 1910–13, entitled their work “Glaciology.”
In America the word “cryology” is coming into fashion to describe the study of refrigeration. For this its use is far less illogical and unnecessary. More than one prominent American glaciologist has written to express approval of it in this sense and abhorence of its use for the scientific study of ice. One of them has also pointed out that in English-speaking countries cry-ology has a slightly ridiculous ring.
It was partly in an endeavour to make the word “glaciology” universal and to combat the unwelcome newcomer, that this Society adopted the former word in its new title. It is to be hoped that “cryology,” so far as the scientific study of ice is concerned, will not be heard of again.
