This is a rant. Caveat Lector.
As I browse around on the Internet, I encounter a good deal of verbiage that, while possibly correct as to grammar, is still quirky. Some authors, possibly in order to sound more intelligent than they are, use or misuse words and phrases. In order to make their articles more intelligible to the US audience, they may translate between the metric system and the imperial system, sometimes with amusing results.
Often someone is said to have made a “meteoric rise.” This could apply to successful politicians, athletes, celebrities, anyone whose career has been successful and quick. Sounds impressive until you consider which way meteors go (hint: it’s not up).
Sometimes they’ll talk of a “quantum leap.” That’s usually supposed to describe a huge, sudden leap. That’s all well and good, except that a “quantum leap” describes how an electron moves within an atom. It is about the tiniest possible movement. Sudden, yes; but huge? Not so much.
Often someone will talk about something being at the “epicenter.” Usually they mean to say that something is at the center. Epicenter just sounds so much fancier, but actually it has a specific meaning. It describes the point on the Earth’s surface that is directly above the location of an earthquake. The center is kilometers below the surface; the epicenter is on the surface.
Similarly, people talk about something “imploding.” They often mean “exploding,” but again, “imploding” sounds more technical and fancier.
Authors might describe how someone used a “methodology” to accomplish something. They almost always mean “method.” “Methodology” is the study of methods.
Many authors try to make their articles more intelligible to US readers, by converting metric units into imperial ones. They sometimes take it a bit too seriously. For example, some scientists believe that the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs was about 10 kilometers in diameter. Authors will convert 10 km to 6.2 miles. This is silly. The 10 km value is an estimate, not an established fact. It might have been 5 km, or 15 km. We don’t know; we just make the best guess based on what we do know. But specifying it to 6.2 miles is simply making the conversion without really understanding what’s going on. 6 miles would be perfectly acceptable.
Some authors, thinking that velocity and speed are the same thing, speak of the “velocity” of light. Almost always, they mean the speed of light. “Velocity” has a specific meaning in physics; it is the speed of something in a particular direction. But again, “velocity” sounds so much more technical than “speed.”
There is a bit of wisdom that goes, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” The idea is that if you allow yourself to be run down or depleted, you won’t be able to help others. It’s an excellent sentiment – take care of yourself, as well as others. Except, we don’t pour from cups.
For some reason, people seem to think that if you climb to the top of mountain, you have “conquered” it. If an ant crawls to the top of my house, has he “conquered” it? I encountered a Japanese author who suggested that we say someone has “befriended” the mountain. I like that.
I get annoyed when an author says that a temperature was (for example) 100°, without specifying units. This is sheer sloppiness. It makes a difference whether it’s Fahrenheit or Celsius. 100° Fahrenheit is uncomfortably warm. 100° Celsius is dangerously hot.
Sometimes authors try to give an idea of the magnitude of something – ash from a volcano, an asteroid, flood, whatever. They try to present it in terms a non-scientific reader could understand. So they may say something like, “enough ash to cover New Jersey to a depth of one foot.” It’s a noble effort, but who knows how big New Jersey (or any other location) really is? Even if you live there, you generally only have a vague notion of its size.
One author was trying to describe how much 1000 cubic km of ash would be. They gave some estimate as to how deep the ash would be, if it all fell on Texas. Something like a depth of 100 meters, whatever. Totally unhelpful. We know Texas is big, so it would be a lot of ash, but… most of us don’t know how big Texas is.
It would be much easier to explain that 1000 cubic km of volume would fill a cube that was 10 km on a side. That could at least give us a chance to understand the magnitude. They could do this with other volumes that aren’t so convenient.
I think another problem is that many authors, without training, get hold of a calculator and think they’re being helpful with calculations. Often they simply confuse the issue, giving results that are ridiculously wrong. Just having a tool does not make you qualified to use it. Anyone can get hold of a scalpel; but not everyone should try to use it for surgery.
I find another tendency irksome; it’s when someone says a value is “ten times smaller” than something else. “Ten times smaller” is meaningless. I know what they mean to say is, “one tenth the size,” but evidently they think their way sounds better. It doesn’t.
Someone might say “more than 23 times the size…” Why 23? Do you mean it’s 24 times the size? Or 23.5? Why choose 23? I’ve seen this more than once. It would make sense to say “more than 20 times” or “almost 25 times,” but more than 23 time is just weird.
Many authors shy away from using scientific notation to represent numbers. Instead of saying that a number was 1015, they’ll simply write “1000000000000000.” Quite often they don’t bother to put in the commas, making the number essentially meaningless and obscure. Or worse, they might say it’s a “thousand million million,” or even call it a quadrillion. These don’t do a thing to help people understand the magnitude of a number. After a few zeroes, numbers begin to lose meaning. Using words such as “septillion” don’t help.
It makes much more sense to use scientific notation. You get a compact description – a base number plus the number ’10’ with an exponent telling you how many zeroes to add. Positive exponent means add the zeroes to the right of the decimal point; negative exponent means add zeroes to the left. That exponent is all you need to give you an idea of how big or small that number is. At a glance you can tell which number is larger or smaller. When the author uses ‘septillion’ or ‘sextillion’, it’s not immediately obvious which is which.
Granted, scientific notation may look scarier, but a simple explanation could overcome this easily. For example, take Avogadro’s number, given as 6.022 x 1023. All the author has to do is explain that this is about 6, followed by 23 zeroes. Dropping the fractional part (0.022) is perhaps cheating, but at least it offers some notion of the number’s magnitude. Writing 602200000000000000000000 really doesn’t help.
There is a lot of scientific news out there, and evidently not enough people qualified to write about it. That hasn’t stopped people from trying. A BA takes on a scientific topic, without understanding enough science to do a decent job. Nothing wrong with having a Bachelor of Arts; we need artists, musicians, and other creative people. But most of the time, these people are not adequately trained to handle scientific information.
Back in the day, this sort of sloppy writing didn’t generally reach the public. Authors had to have their work edited, and most editors weeded out the nonsense and the misguided verbiage.
Because of the Internet, anyone with a computer can publish their work. It allows people to publish work that might otherwise go unseen; but that isn’t always a good thing. There were often good, solid reasons why an author’s work wasn’t published, or why he was compelled to revise it to make it clearer.
Quirks Of Language
This is a rant. Caveat Lector.
As I browse around on the Internet, I encounter a good deal of verbiage that, while possibly correct as to grammar, is still quirky. Some authors, possibly in order to sound more intelligent than they are, use or misuse words and phrases. In order to make their articles more intelligible to the US audience, they may translate between the metric system and the imperial system, sometimes with amusing results.
Often someone is said to have made a “meteoric rise.” This could apply to successful politicians, athletes, celebrities, anyone whose career has been successful and quick. Sounds impressive until you consider which way meteors go (hint: it’s not up).
Sometimes they’ll talk of a “quantum leap.” That’s usually supposed to describe a huge, sudden leap. That’s all well and good, except that a “quantum leap” describes how an electron moves within an atom. It is about the tiniest possible movement. Sudden, yes; but huge? Not so much.
Often someone will talk about something being at the “epicenter.” Usually they mean to say that something is at the center. Epicenter just sounds so much fancier, but actually it has a specific meaning. It describes the point on the Earth’s surface that is directly above the location of an earthquake. The center is kilometers below the surface; the epicenter is on the surface.
Similarly, people talk about something “imploding.” They often mean “exploding,” but again, “imploding” sounds more technical and fancier.
Authors might describe how someone used a “methodology” to accomplish something. They almost always mean “method.” “Methodology” is the study of methods.
Many authors try to make their articles more intelligible to US readers, by converting metric units into imperial ones. They sometimes take it a bit too seriously. For example, some scientists believe that the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs was about 10 kilometers in diameter. Authors will convert 10 km to 6.2 miles. This is silly. The 10 km value is an estimate, not an established fact. It might have been 5 km, or 15 km. We don’t know; we just make the best guess based on what we do know. But specifying it to 6.2 miles is simply making the conversion without really understanding what’s going on. 6 miles would be perfectly acceptable.
Some authors, thinking that velocity and speed are the same thing, speak of the “velocity” of light. Almost always, they mean the speed of light. “Velocity” has a specific meaning in physics; it is the speed of something in a particular direction. But again, “velocity” sounds so much more technical than “speed.”
There is a bit of wisdom that goes, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” The idea is that if you allow yourself to be run down or depleted, you won’t be able to help others. It’s an excellent sentiment – take care of yourself, as well as others. Except, we don’t pour from cups.
For some reason, people seem to think that if you climb to the top of mountain, you have “conquered” it. If an ant crawls to the top of my house, has he “conquered” it? I encountered a Japanese author who suggested that we say someone has “befriended” the mountain. I like that.
I get annoyed when an author says that a temperature was (for example) 100°, without specifying units. This is sheer sloppiness. It makes a difference whether it’s Fahrenheit or Celsius. 100° Fahrenheit is uncomfortably warm. 100° Celsius is dangerously hot.
Sometimes authors try to give an idea of the magnitude of something – ash from a volcano, an asteroid, flood, whatever. They try to present it in terms a non-scientific reader could understand. So they may say something like, “enough ash to cover New Jersey to a depth of one foot.” It’s a noble effort, but who knows how big New Jersey (or any other location) really is? Even if you live there, you generally only have a vague notion of its size.
One author was trying to describe how much 1000 cubic km of ash would be. They gave some estimate as to how deep the ash would be, if it all fell on Texas. Something like a depth of 100 meters, whatever. Totally unhelpful. We know Texas is big, so it would be a lot of ash, but… most of us don’t know how big Texas is.
It would be much easier to explain that 1000 cubic km of volume would fill a cube that was 10 km on a side. That could at least give us a chance to understand the magnitude. They could do this with other volumes that aren’t so convenient.
I think another problem is that many authors, without training, get hold of a calculator and think they’re being helpful with calculations. Often they simply confuse the issue, giving results that are ridiculously wrong. Just having a tool does not make you qualified to use it. Anyone can get hold of a scalpel; but not everyone should try to use it for surgery.
I find another tendency irksome; it’s when someone says a value is “ten times smaller” than something else. “Ten times smaller” is meaningless. I know what they mean to say is, “one tenth the size,” but evidently they think their way sounds better. It doesn’t.
Someone might say “more than 23 times the size…” Why 23? Do you mean it’s 24 times the size? Or 23.5? Why choose 23? I’ve seen this more than once. It would make sense to say “more than 20 times” or “almost 25 times,” but more than 23 time is just weird.
Many authors shy away from using scientific notation to represent numbers. Instead of saying that a number was 1015, they’ll simply write “1000000000000000.” Quite often they don’t bother to put in the commas, making the number essentially meaningless and obscure. Or worse, they might say it’s a “thousand million million,” or even call it a quadrillion. These don’t do a thing to help people understand the magnitude of a number. After a few zeroes, numbers begin to lose meaning. Using words such as “septillion” don’t help.
It makes much more sense to use scientific notation. You get a compact description – a base number plus the number ’10’ with an exponent telling you how many zeroes to add. Positive exponent means add the zeroes to the right of the decimal point; negative exponent means add zeroes to the left. That exponent is all you need to give you an idea of how big or small that number is. At a glance you can tell which number is larger or smaller. When the author uses ‘septillion’ or ‘sextillion’, it’s not immediately obvious which is which.
Granted, scientific notation may look scarier, but a simple explanation could overcome this easily. For example, take Avogadro’s number, given as 6.022 x 1023. All the author has to do is explain that this is about 6, followed by 23 zeroes. Dropping the fractional part (0.022) is perhaps cheating, but at least it offers some notion of the number’s magnitude. Writing 602200000000000000000000 really doesn’t help.
There is a lot of scientific news out there, and evidently not enough people qualified to write about it. That hasn’t stopped people from trying. A BA takes on a scientific topic, without understanding enough science to do a decent job. Nothing wrong with having a Bachelor of Arts; we need artists, musicians, and other creative people. But most of the time, these people are not adequately trained to handle scientific information.
Back in the day, this sort of sloppy writing didn’t generally reach the public. Authors had to have their work edited, and most editors weeded out the nonsense and the misguided verbiage.
Because of the Internet, anyone with a computer can publish their work. It allows people to publish work that might otherwise go unseen; but that isn’t always a good thing. There were often good, solid reasons why an author’s work wasn’t published, or why he was compelled to revise it to make it clearer.