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The use of "some" and "may" in titles always bothers me. Seems like there should be more concrete language available to state the point the article is attemptin
by krumpet 7y ago
The use of "some" and "may" in titles always bothers me. Seems like there should be more concrete language available to state the point the article is attempting to make.
- lotyrin 7y agoYeah, if "some" is there it seems we should be confident enough to drop "may" or we should have looked into it a bit more before publishing...
- smacktoward 7y agoThe flip side of this is that scientists are terribly difficult people to get to not hedge their statements. It's just a consequence of the scientific mindset -- scientists are aware that today's results are always provisional, someone may come along tomorrow with a new discovery that overturns them. So they tend to avoid making definitive statements like saying something applies to all things, or that some thing is, favoring less definitive statements like something applies to some things, some thing may be, etc.
- krumpet 7y agoI would prefer something similar to, "Test of single plastic teabag shown to release billions of microplastics and nanoplastics". Accurate without overpromising.
- krumpet 7y agoIt's worth noting the first statement in the actual report reads, "Plastic teabags release billions of microparticles and nanoparticles into tea"
- OrgNet 7y agojust like titles that end in question marks... usually always bullshit