(oy at least
jecbive )

April 14, 1956
Dear Dr. Huxley:

Thank you for your note of the 11th.

Our summer plans are not altogether definite. We have tentative
commitments to be at Baltimore June 18-22 and Ann Arbor July 9-13.
If we can possibly manage it, we hope to get to Woods Hole for the
rest of July and perhaps a week in August. If so, we shall look
forward to seeing you there. Otherwise, as far as we know Know, we
expect to be at home. So if we miss zou at Woods Hole, I hope to
see you here. Most of my colleagues ate likely to be here too in
early September.

What do you think of the deterioration of terminology that has been
setting in for such respectable terms as "locus" and "allele". I have
been disturbed and astonished to read my esteemed colleagues! reports
on crossing-over within loci and seriation of alleles, and }fnow Demebec
is proposing that a locus be a functional unit, and the term site for
the recombinational unit. This wouldn't be so bad if one really could
judge what the functional unit was; at least we do have a relatively unas
biguous test fcr the recombinational unit. There is something of a

question of linguistic history here -- wasn't "allelomorphic" con-
ceived as expressing the mutual exclusion of alternatives from a gamete,
i.e., the absence of recombination between them. If this goes on, we
will probably have to drop these terms altogether! You are scmething
of a neologist yourself, and I have to congratubbte the technique of
concise formation that led, 6.g., to "morph", so I suspect you share
my concern for precision in meaning. What we lack is a respectable
dictionary in bhology, authoritative and comprehenséve enough that we
would use it as extensively in technical writing as we do the standard
dictionaries. The existing versions are either hopelessly out-df-date
or not technigal encugh. AMAXXXAMXMMMHMAXZRM A good dictionary would
be tremeddously valuable not only to stabilize the notation fer general
concepts like gene and allele, but even more so for run-cf-the-mill
reference, so that bacteriologists and zoologists could still talk to
one another.

I have been making small noises in favor of such a venture, but
without mich respunse here. In fact, it really has to be done in England,
because I don't think you will find enough educated people here who
would be interested in it. Can you see any hope for it?

Yours sincerely,
es of

\ en! fo JZ i
Joshua Lederberg

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