One reason that many able students find introductory college physics difficult is the way language is used in this course. The large vocabulary we use for precise purposes in physics contains many words which have related, but potentially confusing meanings in everyday usage. A surprising number of other words we use frequently are not used consistently in the language of introductory textbooks. Even our statements of important and well-established principles like Newton’s laws of motion are inconsistent. I analyze the treatment of Newton’s laws of motion in several well-known introductory textbooks for evidence of such problems. A series of suggestions for ways of reducing these difficulties concludes the paper.

1.
James K.
Senior
, “
The Vernacular of the Laboratory
,”
Philos. Sci.
25
,
163
168
(
1958
).
2.
Thomas S. Kuhn, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Foundations of the Unity of Science, Vol. II, No. 2, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970), 2nd ed., enlarged.
3.
Image and Logic: The Material Culture of Microphysics, edited by Peter Galison (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997).
4.
Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (Bantam Books, New York, 1988).
5.
The struggles of some similar students are examined by Shelia Tobias in They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different (Research Corporation, Tuscon, AZ, 1990).
6.
A Guide to Introductory Physics Teaching, edited by Arnold B. Arons (Wiley, New York, 1990).
7.
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (Harper Perennial, New York, 1995).
8.
E.
Shahn
, “
On Science Literacy
,”
J. Philosophy of Education Society of Australia
20
,
42
52
(
1988
).
9.
See Ref. 6, pp. 123 and 124.
10.
Poul Anderson, “Cleftish Unbeholdings,” in Of Thoughts and Words, Proceedings of the Nobel Symposium 92, edited by Sture Allen (Imperial College Press, London, 1994), p. 263.
11.
Douglas R. Hofstadter, in Ref. 10, p. 217.
12.
Dictionary references herein all come from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam-Webster, Inc., Springfield, MA, 1996), 10th ed.
13.
See Ref. 2, p. 47.
14.
See Ref. 2, p. 50.
15.
Italicized definitions are taken from Ref. 12.
16.
In the spring of 1998, as this was being written, the American Physical Society was struggling with definitions. A task group established in 1995 in response to growing concern about public misunderstanding of science, sought a definition of science. A 4000-word definition was generated and published in the October 1997 APS newsletter, Physics and Society. An attempt to shorten the definition has, so far, failed, with a 210-word version recently rejected by the governing council of the APS.
17.
See, for example,
Robert J.
Whitaker
, “
Aristotle is not Dead: Student Understanding of Trajectory Motion
,”
Am. J. Phys.
51
(
3
),
352
357
(
1983
).
18.
See Ref. 6, p. 74.
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