How palynology could have been paepalology: the naming of a discipline

From its ‘modern’ pollen-analytical beginnings, the science of what we now term palynology wrestled with terminology and sought an acceptable name for the discipline. Starting in 1943, the mimeographed Pollen Analysis Circular, edited from Ohio by Paul Sears, led to discussion of the content, organisation and naming of a developing discipline. This came to a head in 1944 with Ernst Antev’s plea for ‘The Right Word’ and the suggestion of the word palynology from the Cardiff duo of Harold Hyde and David Williams. In the search for a suitable term, Hyde consulted Cardiff-based Irish classicist Leopold Richardson who advised against the word palynology and suggested six alternatives. Hyde, however, was wedded to the term palynology and, in the interests of euphony and ‘hankering after my own offspring’, was seemingly able to overcome Richardson’s scholarly objections by argument. Hyde and Williams defined palynology as ‘the study of pollen and other spores and their dispersal, and applications thereof.’ This was considered an advance because alternative terms such as pollen analysis, pollen statistics and pollen science did not include the application or interpretation of pollen evidence. The term palynology quickly found acceptability within the pages of the Pollen Analysis Circular and subsequently received an airing in Nature. Once palynology was adopted by the influential Swede Gunnar Erdtman, it was rapidly accepted by the palaeoecological community.