Comparable means capable of being compared, which in science is equivalent to being expressed in units that can be interconverted. Three feet is also comparable with 3 microns, or Pingback: The dangerous temptation of acronyms Scientist Sees Squirrel. If people stop using words or abbreviations because of semantic drift, how will they develop a settled meaning? Readers usually understand meanings from context which is how words achieve settled meanings.
I say keep using them and let the chips fall where they will. Pingback: Editing as conversation Scientist Sees Squirrel. But as I get older, I increasingly think that latin abbreviations should be discouraged. For some people, including my younger self, using latin abbreviations is just showing off some cheap erudition. As is it in French and medieval Latin. Pingback: The blog post that dooms the universe Scientist Sees Squirrel. Pingback: Drosophila, exponential growth, and the power of evolution Scientist Sees Squirrel.
I really enjoyed this article, so enlightening. As regards the proper use of cf. Obviously, I sung it to myself whilst reading it the first time. My pet hate amongst linguistic drifts though, is disinterested. It was for a bit of code that formats a reference to an external resource i. I speak computer better than human nowadays, so this article was a badly-needed refresher.
Pingback: Strong opinions, weak effects: What makes a good title? Scientist Sees Squirrel. Thanks for the correction. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.
Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. My writing pet peeves, part 2 Scientific writing is sprinkled with Latin. Like this: Like Loading Comment on this post: Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Scientist Sees Squirrel Join 12, other followers.
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