ELIZABETH:
In the context of the title of Kruglyak's paper for next week, here is a small piece of literature search I have been promising to do for some time:

Number of articles returned by MEDLINE when searching on the

     key word:                diallelic              biallelic

         MEDLINE 66-74           1                       0

         MEDLINE 75-79          14                       1 (French)

         MEDLINE 80-84          18                       1

         MEDLINE 85-89          34                      19

         MEDLINE 90-            86                     192

Seems we have to blame the French for the original mutation, but the Molecular Biotechnologists for providing it an advantageous environment.

There are many earlier uses of "diallelic"; can anyone find a pre-1976 use of "biallelic" (in a reputable scientific journal)?

ELLEN:
Perhaps the French, in speaking a language descended from Latin, more naturally use the prefix bi- than di-, which would explain the original "mutation". Charlie Cotterman would also not have approved - he hated chimeric words, and since allele is Greek, the prefix should presumably also be Greek. Interesting, however, that the big jump in use of bi- only occurred since 1990.

ELIZABETH (9/28/2003):
The above is exactly 7 years old: it seems time for an update, this time from ISI Web of Science: 


              diallelic             biallelic
1975-80:             4                   0
1981-85:             3                   6
1986-90:             9                   8
1991-95:            75                  95
1996-2000:         129                 452
2000-2003:          96                 493

http://www.biostat.washington.edu/biostat/classes/biostat580B Sep 30, 1996

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