“In silice”, damnit!

One of my pet peeves is the term “in silico.” It is not grammatically correct Classical Latin. “In silico” is a term popular among scientists today, especially biologists, to refer to computational experiments. It is intended to complement the popular, and grammatically correct terms “in vivo” (“in life”) and “in vitro” (“in glass”). However, the coiners of it used the wrong declension.

“In silico” is clearly based on “silicon”; in turn, “silicon” is derived from the third declension Latin noun, “silex” (stone), whose root is “silic-,” and the Greek neuter nominative ending “-on.” Now in Latin, “in” is a preposition that takes the ablative case, and “silice”, not “silico,” is the ablative of “silex.”

Therefore, the proper term is actually “in silice.”

In case you are wondering, “vivus” and “vitrum” are second declension nouns, which is why their ablatives are formed with an “-o” suffix.

I suggest that scientists who have been using “in silico” take two approaches, either use “in silice” a proper Classical Latin phrase, or use “in silico,” dropping the italics to signify that it is an English phrase.

However, I must include a caveat. The Vatican still uses Latin today. To keep up with the times, they do convert modern terms to Latin. Perhaps the Lexicon Recentis Latinitas does have proper a modern Latin term for silicon, and perhaps it is “silicus” or “silicum.” If that is the case, then “in silico” is proper after all. I’ve tried to find the LRL, but my university library doesn’t have it.