Inaccurate Language in Scholarly Work

A Recently Published Scholarly Article:
 

If Romeo and Juliet Had Mobile Phones

Barry Wellman (University of Toronto) and Lee Rainie (Pew Internet and American Life Project)

For Mobile Media & Communication, June 7, 2012

http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/RomeoJuliet/Mobile2a1-final.pdf

 If only Romeo and Juliet had mobile phones, they’d be with us now. Remember Juliet’s cry, “Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” (II, 2, 33). Nowadays, she’d ask “where are you?” which is what we often do when we send or receive a call on our mobiles. It’s not like the old days when you called someone on their wired-in (“landline”) phone at home or work—you knew exactly where they were and had a pretty good idea of the social and physical context in which they were operating.

A Definition:

where·fore/ˈ(h)we(ə)rˌfôr/

Adverb:

For what reason: "she took an ill turn, but wherefore I cannot say". As a result of which: "truly he cared for me, wherefore I title him with all respect".

It’s all semantics, I agree. In a previous entry I poked some fun at Rick Perry and his claim that Iran will “literally” move at the speed of light to wreak havoc on the middle east once the US vacates the region. I’m bringing the topic up again, because it’s that important.

In academics we practice neologism quite a bit. That is, coining new terms. This is how we get books like Gyn-ecology, or articles with ( ) marks all over the place. But there is a difference between making up a new word to describe some snazzy idea you’ve coined and just plain being lazy about language.

Sure language evolves over time, and maybe words change meaning as a result. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if in 100 years “literally” meant exactly the opposite of its current meaning because the bone heads win out over the English majors (which, by the way, Forbes really seems to be in favor of: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/05/29/to-boost-post-college-prospects-cut-humanities-departments/).

If there’s one thing we can do as humanities folks, it’s not misuse words. I’m not saying we all need to be hoity toity in our writing and speaking. In fact, I’d welcome a bit more use of words like “dude” and “hella” in academic work. But when you’re going to use a word, use it the right way.