Radiologia, a long-time established scientific journal (from 1912), welcomes the incoming Editor-in-Chief, Luis H Ros Mendoza, who will succeed José María García Santos. I had the privilege to work closely with both, and my personal belief is that the Spanish radiological community can be proud of having such individuals driving the flagship of SERAM. Welcome Luis, you are about to initiate a most inspiring period of your scientific life, serving the community. Good bye José María, you can be proud of your 12-year accomplishment,1 and continue your tremendous work as a Deputy Editor of European Radiology.
Entropy is an interesting word. From the Greek (
), it means “transformation”. With its potential dynamic connotation of a passage to a different (better?) situation, it also acquired a rather negative assertion, meaning in the best case “uncertainty of outcome”, or a slightly worse “energy that exists but is no longer efficient”, or finally the most desperate “trend toward death and disorder”.2 The most common image is that of a melting ice-cube transforming itself from an organized and meaningful object into a shapeless puddle.
What is entropy in the world of scientific publication? A universal law in the scientific world has always been “publish or perish”. There are many reasons for that, including personal promotion, fund raising, individual or institutional recognition. All of these situations require metrics, somebody has to decide that scholar A is better than scholar B, and hence we enter the kingdom of metrics, where impact factor is in the front row. Therefore, the dream of every researcher is to publish an article in a highly-ranked journal. Science should be cutting-edge and peer-reviewers, highly dedicated scientists themselves, should be convinced of the scientific advances. At the end of the day, it is a dialogue between highly focused researchers. The outcome is that published articles are sometimes very difficult to understand for those who, day-by-day, should apply scientific advances to patient care. Here we encounter one definition of entropy as, under the cover of science, we deliver “energy that is not efficient”. Interestingly, many journals are now publishing accompanying editorials, whose aim is more or less to translate the published scientific article into understandable language!
However, these high impact factor journals reject 80–95% of manuscripts, while at the same time, the number of submissions increases continuously. It is still profitable for many lower ranked journals to consider these initially rejected submissions. In many cases, authors dramatically improve these manuscripts for a new submission based on comments and advices obtained through the initial peer-review. Major journals not only publish cutting-edge science, but they should also play an important role for the community by providing tracks for improvement of rejected papers. However, it is a painful and time-consuming pathway to submit iteratively to several journals. Therefore, it is very tempting for some “publishers” to consider this huge number of authors as potential customers for alternative journals. This explains the increasing number of journals, among which some may deserve to be classified as “predatory journals”.3 These do not always fulfill the ethical principles of scientific publication and offer more liberal conditions for publication, turning a blind eye to ethical principles. Losing ethics meets the entropic “trend to disorder and death”.
Vernacular and vehicular languages drive our daily professional lives. Whether we like it or not, English has become the vehicular language of science. English is the official language of 67 countries. It is the native language of approximately 350 million people, another 850 million speak it fluently, and in total 1.5 billion are able to communicate. Nevertheless, in some countries, only a minority of the population can really hold a conversation in English. This applies to Spain as well as to France, even if this proportion is fortunately increasing in the younger generation. However, we can question the exact definition of “English”. Oscar Wilde, in “The Canterville Ghost” describes Mrs Otis, an American lady from New York who just bought the haunted house, as follows: “Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America, except, of course, language.”4
Beyond this provocative quote, it is widely acknowledged that “international” English differs significantly from the original.5 Terms like “Chinglish”, “Spanglish”, and “Globbish” have appeared and reflect reality to a certain degree. In an international meeting, everybody speaks English and understands each other easily, due to the small number of different words, and iterative use of basic sentences. English native speakers may be difficult to understand because they use a much richer vocabulary, and modern expressions belonging to the spoken language, not necessarily to the written and more classical language we commonly learn and read.
Today, scientific communication relies on technical English. Most of the basic medical language has Greek and/or Latin origin, and is therefore more or less shared by many languages. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Danish doctors were still writing patients’ notes in Latin. See the Editorial by Wullf,6 who traces the evolution of medical language and observes the modern trend toward the development of new words based on English, like “bypass”, “clearance” or “screening”. Some of these words are already assimilated into vernacular language. Even abbreviations are commonly adopted according to the English version like PET (Positron Emission Tomography), replacing TEP in Spanish (Tomografía por Emision de Positrones) and in French (Tomographie par Emission de Positrons). Other examples commonly found in Spanish literature are the “Índice de Dosis en Tomografía Computarizada (CTDI)” and the “Producto dosis-longitud (DLP)”.7,8
However, Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, representing 400 million native speakers, as well as the mother tongue of many people in other countries, including a growing minority of 13% in the United States. This makes Spanish the second most spoken native language worldwide, only surpassed by Mandarin, and ahead of English. Spanish is also the third most studied language worldwide. It is an obvious link between Europe and Latin America.
What is the role of a journal like Radiologia in a world of entropy, and how can it compromise between vehicular and vernacular language?
The answer to entropy is quality and ethics. Radiologia, like many journals, fights daily to attract high level submissions. However, it does so honestly, without luring frustrated authors with lenient peer-review. Prof García Santos’ editorial expresses that no matter how difficult the pathway, there is no alternative to quality and ethics.1 Obviously, the rejection rate does not reach the same level as high ranking journals; yet this does not mean that accepted papers are of low quality. In every journal, we receive submissions that contain useful science, but sometimes lack rigor in the organization of data, and/or the presentation and interpretation of the results. These will be rejected by major journals, because these receive so many alternative submissions. Peer-review, for Radiologia, should not be a tool for rejection but constructive support for the improvement of content. Fortunately, the Editorial Board includes internationally renowned experts who are able to constantly raise the performance, as is their own role within the national community. Another important aspect of a national journal is to educate and to cover professional issues. For instance, recommendation or management papers published in international journals are sometimes poorly adopted in different countries. The reason is quite simple: local organization and cultural background differs vastly, thus some excellent guidelines published in major journals appear as if they derive from another planet. Despite the trend to harmonize and standardize, basic organization of radiology (hospital vs individuals, private vs public), teaching principles, relationship with patients, among many other issues, should prompt adaptation to the local reality and history.
Compromising between vernacular and vehicular language is a necessity. As a side product of “linguicism” – a contraction of language and imperialism9 – native English speakers have a clear advantage over less well-versed authors. Radiologia decided to publish some articles in English, a good decision that expands the readership to include those who do not speak Spanish. The majority of researchers now access the literature through the two major tools, Pubmed and Google Scholar. Papers published in English in Radiologia are now retrievable with both tools. Authors should help the Editorial Board prepare papers with an acceptable level in the English language. Maybe one day, some kind of scaled down English will be accepted in written papers as it already is for oral presentations at congresses (although always poorly rated). However, we should consider that today, non-native English speakers are often held to the same standard as native speakers. It is unlikely that any journal will develop a sufficiently extensive language editing service, thus we have to encourage the authors, whenever necessary, to seek help from professionals. Even today this is already a reasonably affordable option.
The aim is to obtain formal indexation, which in itself encourages young researchers to publish in a journal. This is the vicious cycle for journals, however it is unavoidable.
Conversely, a strong and large community should not give up its own language. Besides the justifiable pride in history, language is an essential support for mutual understanding and a vital factor in initial or continued education. Whatever our skill level in any foreign language, we always understand the shades of communication in our mother tongue better. Moreover, papers published in Spanish are now retrievable with Google Scholar.
We therefore appreciate the continuous work of the previous Editorial Board which, based on quality and ethical principles, promoted Radiologia as a scientific and educational tool dedicated to the Spanish speaking community. At the same time it decided to open the journal to other readers and authors by partly adopting the English language, a move which has paved the way for future developments. As an Editor-in-Chief of European Radiology, I can only favor the development of such a journal. I wish Prof. Ros-Mendoza and his team a wonderful journey as editors. It is a difficult but rewarding task. I encourage the whole Spanish community to support the voice of Radiologia!
Katrin Deininger has reviewed and edited this manuscript.
Please cite this article as: Menu Y. Entropía, lengua vernácula y vehicular. Radiología. 2018;60:91–93.
