The most mis-used word in the English language

David Heath
Monday, 29 March 2010 22:27

Opinion and Analysis

It is easy to observe a pair of events and make a determination of cause and effect.  It's even easier to be wrong.

In my opinion, the word 'therefore' is probably the most poorly used and understood word in our language.

Like may readers, I was drawn to the recent (amusing) report in the UK's "The Sun" newspaper which attempted to draw a connection between the rise of Facebook usage and a seemingly related increase in the incidence of syphilis in the same group of people.

The article quotes Professor Peter Kelly, director of Public Health for the National Health Service in Tees, saying "There has been a four-fold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected, with more young women being affected."

He continues, "Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms."

Thus, because there is a parallel rise in social networking usage and the incidence of syphilis, the two must be related.  My colleague Alex Zaharov-Reutt also took the opportunity to cast aspersions upon the connection between the two concepts; and correctly Alex also notes that Professor Kelly made no specific accusations against Facebook - that was the done by the journalist.

Drawing such conclusions is like saying: "cats have four legs, the creature before me has four legs, therefore it is a cat."

We see similar activity elsewhere.  The great autism vs. vaccination debate for instance.