thesauri*
Comment on Academic writing
m0darn@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
I don’t read much (/any) academic writing, but does it really misuse words the way the link portrays?
Eg
- academic writing isn’t prose, like that’s almost the definition of prose.
- intra-specialized doesn’t mean anything (the intra prefix didn’t work on adjectives)
- “obfuscating … accessibility” means making it difficult to see that it is accessible, where the author probably actually wants to say “reducing the ability of outsiders to access the meaning”
I get that it is satire, but imo it would be better satire if he put in the work to actually make it mean something. Unless the point is that academic writers misuse thesauruses this badly.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
GiveMemes@jlai.lu 5 days ago
All English words that don’t have a specific pluralization (eg mouse, mice) can be pluralized with either an s or an es. It’s also a Latin and Greek root, so it can be pluralized as you did, in the Latin way, or the Greek way (Thesauroi), or alternatively with the s/es ending, all of which are correct!
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Unlike “octopuses”. 🙇🏽♂️
GiveMemes@jlai.lu 5 days ago
Nope! Octopuses, octopuses, and octopi are all correct afaik
grandkaiser@lemmy.world 5 days ago
*thesaurisi
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Veni, Vidi, Thesaurisi?
xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
It’s saying that it uses terminology that is well-understood, specific and explicit within the field, but depends on a common understanding of the language used. So people outside the field are unable to understand it, even though they would be able to understand the actual concepts.
m0darn@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
I agree that that’s probably what it’s trying to say, but I don’t think it actually says that.
Anti_Face_Weapon@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I think the meaning of the actual words that he chose is less important than the fact that it sounds absurdly convoluted.
Also I don’t think his point is true. If you read academic papers come up most of them are pretty easy to understand.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
I think the point is that academic writers use large terms, despite using them wrong, when diminutive ones would suffice.
They use big words for the sake of using big words. Whether they make any sense whatsoever, is entirely beside the point.
The text, as I understand it is essentially saying the same thing, using big words to obfuscate that they’re actually saying something rather boring and simple, which also has the point of obfuscating the meaning of the text to anyone who isn’t an academic; aka someone who isn’t used to such nonsensical word play.
There’s a good reason I’ve avoided any work in academic fields. They incorrectly use terms, which just muddies the water on what the hell they’re actually saying. Not only because the terms are big/less known, but because they’re often used wrong.
IMO, academics are morons who like to sound smart.
… Do you concur?
m0darn@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
I don’t think that there’s a higher concentration of morons in academia than in larger society. However, their professional experience is pretty different from the so called ‘real world’ so they definitely can have some unfathomable blind spots.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
I agree with this, especially that the number of morons isn’t higher than society at large, and therein lies the problem with society.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Not unlike LLMs. How curious.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Socioeconomic encryption. Fun fact: the Chinese written language was focused on this concept — and Korean focused on doing the opposite, in fact.