Anyway, physics/math people don't follow the same rules everyone else does when making words to describe something new. You kind of get used to it when you're there.
From So Long and Thanks for All the Fish the following seems to match the behaviour you describe:
"I'm afraid I can't comment on the name Rain God at this present
time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous Para-
Causal Meteorological Phenomenon."
"Can you tell us what that means?"
"I'm not altogether sure. Let's be straight here. If we find
something we can't understand we like to call it something you
can't understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you
go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you
know something we don't, and I'm afraid we couldn't have that.
"No, first we have to call it something which says it's ours, not
yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it's not
what you said it is, but something we say it is.
"And if it turns out that you're right, you'll still be wrong,
because we will simply call him a ... er `Supernormal ...' - not
paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those
mean now, no, a `Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer'.
We'll probably want to shove a `Quasi' in there somewhere to
protect ourselves. Rain God! Huh, never heard such nonsense in my
life.
