The hypothesis' ambassador Love them or hate them, but don't be indifferent to neologisms: They are there to be tested ...

摘要

Though I offer no such titillating parallel as that of Phryne's trial, used by Victor de Lorenzo in the last editorial, I am prompted to follow his lead with a commentary on the seductive capacity of words, and one group in particular: neologisms. Neologisms give a name to a concept or phenomenon (rather than a newly discovered ‘part’, e.g. protein), and often express a new hypothesis. They may be considered seductive in two senses: firstly because their creators are seduced by the ability to express a potentially new scientific concept in language – a creative act that might stake their claim as the first to discover something; secondly because they often find favour in the rest of the scientific community for their conciseness.