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Cell wall is a dead metaphor.
- Source :
-
Journal of plant physiology [J Plant Physiol] 2023 Nov; Vol. 290, pp. 154099. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Sep 22. - Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- It was recently suggested to end the usage of the term cell wall in microbiology (including prokaryotes and fungi) because it represented an inappropriate and potentially misleading metaphor (Casadevall and Gow, 2022). The analysis of the arguments for such a move from the viewpoint of the plant physiologist indicates that the suggestion is based on misunderstandings, first, of the early history of cell biology and its terminology; second, of the development of modern concepts of cell wall function since the late 19th century; and third, of the nature of metaphors and their role in scientific communication. We conclude that misconceptions concerning cell walls may arise due to pedagogical shortcomings in introducing students to our technical terminology rather than from the fact that part of this terminology originated from metaphors.<br />Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.<br /> (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)
- Subjects :
- Metaphor
Terminology as Topic
Cell Wall
Cell Biology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1618-1328
- Volume :
- 290
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Journal of plant physiology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 37776572
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jplph.2023.154099