It is a synonym for “in-place”, though. If academic writing was optimizing for reach, the more commonplace word instead of the latin variant would likely be us

It is a synonym for “in-place”, though. If academic writing was optimizing for reach, the more commonplace word instead of the latin variant would likely be used. To your point, though, if someone submitted a paper using “in-place” someone would probably point it out [0]. I think that’s the original point, that a lot of the word-level complexity is just how the writing is taught and subsequent reinforcement by mentors and peers to use the appropriate language. Yeah, elucidate is just a fancy word for “figure out” - but I think it is part of the dialect because of the connotation you mention (Even if a casual reader might not use it). [0] Not because it is strictly wrong, but because it violates how the in-group expects converse. I think this holds even if we go outside of phrases (One could argue in-situ hybridization is one item), as if I discover something new I’ll likely use the term “in-situ” if it involves similar locality properties