{"id":404,"date":"2009-10-07T22:12:10","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T21:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2009\/10\/07\/mind_your_language\/"},"modified":"2012-01-07T14:41:02","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T13:41:02","slug":"mind_your_language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2009\/10\/07\/mind_your_language\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind your language"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to language, I am a lover and<\/em> a fighter. I’m no great expert but I know what I like and do try to take a bit<\/em> of care every time I lay out my little handkerchief of prose here on Nature Network.<\/p>\n

\tSo today, when I spotted that The Guardian’s<\/em> report<\/a> on the award of the Nobel prize for Chemistry to the three crystallographers who determined the structure of the ‘rhibosome’ (I kid you not), I fired off a tweet of correction<\/a>. This weird mis-spelling of ‘ribosome’ didn’t look like a forgivable typo. No, the deformity rankled as a bad guess.<\/p>\n

\tBut last week I was myself pulled up for offences against the English language. This occurred when I received an email from an editor at the Journal of Molecular Biology<\/em> inviting me to revise our recently submitted manuscript (on the structure of a protease-peptide complex) “in the light of the referees’ comments”.<\/p>\n

\tNow my first reaction was one of delight since, if past experience is anything to go by, this circumlocution means the paper should be accepted subject to minor revisions. I was also pleased because this means we will probably have a paper in JMB<\/em> in the year that this venerable publication celebrates its 50th anniversary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\tThen I turned my attention to the requested revisions, three of which referred to my use of language.<\/p>\n

\tTo the first charge, the use of ‘apoenzyme’ to refer to the unliganded form of an enzyme, I have to plead guilty. That was sloppy of me. An aopenzyme is, of course, a protein catalyst without its co-factor.<\/p>\n

\tIn the case of the other two charges, however, I think I will fight my corner. The referee claims that ‘complex’ is not a verb in English. But it seems to me to be in common parlance, at least among crystallographers. We had written ‘prior to crystallisation we complexed the peptide with the protease’. I was relieved to find that ‘complex’ is indeed defined as a verb in the dictionary on my computer, and one of my co-authors found it<\/a> in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Case closed, I think.<\/p>\n

\tFinally, and most surprisingly of all to me, we were taken to task for using the term ‘protein expression’ to refer to the synthesis of our protein in bacteria. The reviewer pointed out that genes may be expressed but not proteins (!) and went on to bemoan the deterioration of accuracy in scientific language. Well that was a first for me. I can see where the reviewer is coming from but is there really<\/em> any ambiguity in ‘protein expression’? It is a phrase I have used and heard used without confusion for nigh on 20 years.<\/p>\n

\tNow I don’t want to row with the reviewer. (By which I mean don’t want to argue, not<\/em> that I am averse to taking a trip with him or her in a boat equipped with oars. My goodness, this English language is a slippery thing. Look at the stacks of alternative meanings building up for just one little word, row upon row… but I digress). After all, this person has done me a great service by reading our manuscript very closely and politely suggesting improvements. But I have to dissent from their rather static view of language.<\/p>\n

\tWhen it comes to the ways that we create meaning with words I am bound to say that I am firmly in Stephen Fry’s camp<\/a>. Language is a living, breathing thing. It grows and develops. And, as long as meaning is not obscured<\/em>, anything goes.<\/p>\n

\tThat’s what makes writing fun. Innit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to language, I am a lover and a fighter. I’m no great expert but I know what I like and do try to take a bit of care every time I lay out my little handkerchief of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-scientific-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}