I was editing a friend's paper today, which she was going to read out loud for a conference, and there tucked in with her analysis was the word 'whilst." I asked her "Do you ever actually say 'whilst.' She answered that she doesn't, but it is just one of those academics words she can't give up.
My word is hence, I love the word hence, it is the ultimate declarative. It feels like no matter what is written after the word hence, you will not be able to argue with it. "Hence, we now understand that chocolate chip cookies deserve their own food group." Hence, star trek was and still is the best televisions series ever to be aired."
My husband likes 'indeed." I believe there is a place for the word indeed, but really, it is just a weaker hence.
Some academics like to use latin words. For example, I love the terms a priori and post hoc. Any stats term that can be applied to real life is fine by me. Some people like to use ad nauseum or ad infinitum. I prefer ad nauseum because there are many academics things that make you feel sick if you think about them too much. Ad infinitum however, is just inaccurate, we are academics, we never study the infinite (too hard to define, no good parameters), if anything our narrow research foci have caused us to need words describing levels of finitude. And of course etc., the layman's latin, is not good writing form, which actually kind of sucks. If I were allowed to use etc. I think my thesis would be about 5 words long (including the latin).
Therefore, whence, heretofore, etc. (See it is so useful), there are so many little words we academics love. Journalists have their own style of writing, fiction writers, speechwriters, it is only fair that we academics have a few words we can claim as truly ours.
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