BTW, I love the Hitchhiker's books and read them about once a year.
But I take issue with this...
If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce.
I don't think the superstring guys are unable to understand compact spaces (I mean, I myself understood them somewhat, at one time). They are just using the most accurate word they know of to describe something they observe.
Oceanography example: advecting means something is being dragged along with a current. If you had to write "The current dragged the zooplankton westward" every time you were talking about it, it would quickly become fabulously annoying, plus it sounds like the zooplankton are resisting being dragged (like a dog on a leash), which isn't true, because they just float in the water and follow it wherever it goes. Much better to say "The zooplankton were advected westward with the current." Much more accurate.
I hate it when non-scientists accuse us of using "jargon", because it's only jargon if you don't know the words. Just like the Latin nuts on the Board - I don't think it's jargon when they talk about nominative and other cases, I just accept that I don't understand enough about Latin grammar to follow what they're saying.
