P3D Re: Stereopticon vs. stereoscope

[abram klooswyk <abram.klooswyk@xxxxxx>]

George Themelis wrote (PHOTO-3D Digest 3146, 6 Jan 1999)
>The thing I don't like about "stereopticon" is that it mixes a Greek
>and a Latin word.

I never believed I should have to question what a Greek says _on Greek_.
At school we were reading Homer, at a speed of about 10 to 20 lines an 
hour. After a year or so we would speak of some girls as 
"eupeplos, euploklamos kai bo-oopsis" (with beautiful cloth, 
beautiful hair and large eyes). Bo-oopis literally meaning: with 
cow-eyes, which was said of Hera, Zeus wife.

"OOPS" indeed is a ancient Greek word for eye!, the 'oo' standing 
for the character Omega, last of the Greek alphabet, and "ps" for 
another Greek character. Oops is the last word of my Homer dictionary, 
which didn't open very often these last forty years..... 
Now in "optics" there is a "t" in the place of the "s" of course, 
but as I understood this change is a frequent occurrence. 
My ancient Greek dictionary says: optos = seen, visible ; opter = spy, 
watcher; optilitis = the viewer (said of Athena), optilos = eye.
It is of course likely that the "opt.." word reached us through the
Latin.

Now for mixing Greek and Latin, I know a classicist who has studied 
the official "Latin" names in anatomy (adopted by the international 
organization of anatomists). He was horrified by the mess...

So "stereopticon" in the nineteenth century was essentially a
MONO-projector for dissolve projection of lantern slides, but it is 
quite understandable that it was confused with a device for stereoscopy. 
The word shouldn't have been used for a mono device in the first place. 
When you enter "stereopticon" in a Web search engine you find hundreds 
of pages, several using the word for Holmes stereoscope, but some 
correctly, with images of vintage lantern slides.

On top of that, the Taylor Merchant corporation sells the "Stereopticon 
707" for some decades, the flat folding originally cardboard 
stereoviewer with has been sold with several books. After over 25 years 
they still print "patent pending" on them. I doubt whether that claim 
legally is still valid...
But as they have given it that name, it cannot be ignored.

Abram Klooswyk


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