Editors, Environment

Ballistics or Throwing Things

Introduction

Ballistics or throwing things. Explore the distinction between 'chucking' and 'throwing', focusing on the intent behind discarding vs. directing objects. Understand basic concepts related to projectile motion.

Abstract

There is a distinction between chucking and throwing: when you chuck a thing away you discard it as being valueless, the word "chuck" being quite a good dictionary word with that meaning; when you " throw " something, you are interested at least in the direction of your throw, if not also in the distance to which you will throw it. You might, of course, also be interested in direction in the act of chucking - you could say, "I'll chuck that in the garbage bin " - but you would hardly stand back and indulge in careful target practice to throw it into the bin from a distance unless your sporting instinct were strongly developed - or the garbage tin contents strongly developed.

Review

This submission, titled "Ballistics or Throwing Things," appears from its abstract to be a linguistic or semantic exploration of the distinction between the verbs "to chuck" and "to throw." The abstract articulates a clear difference, suggesting that "chucking" implies discarding something valueless, while "throwing" carries an intention related to direction and/or distance. The author presents this distinction in a conversational and somewhat anecdotal style, highlighting nuances such as the possibility of "chucking" something into a bin but with less inherent sporting intent than "throwing." However, several significant concerns arise from this abstract. Foremost among them is the considerable mismatch between the title and the content described. The inclusion of "Ballistics" in the title strongly suggests a scientific, quantitative, or physical analysis of projectile motion. Yet, the abstract contains no mention of physics, mechanics, methodology, data, or any empirical investigation whatsoever; it is purely a qualitative, semantic discussion. Furthermore, the abstract itself lacks the formal structure and academic rigor typically expected of a scholarly journal submission. There is no indication of a research question, theoretical framework, literature review, or methodology, which are fundamental components of a publishable academic paper. The informal language and illustrative examples, while engaging, further contribute to an impression of an essay rather than a research article. In its current form, this submission, based solely on the abstract, is not suitable for publication in an academic or scientific journal. To be considered, the author would need to undertake substantial revisions. This would involve clearly defining a research question, grounding the discussion within an established theoretical framework (e.g., lexical semantics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics), and outlining a robust methodology to empirically support the proposed distinction. Crucially, the title must be revised to accurately reflect the paper's content, or the paper's scope must be significantly expanded to genuinely incorporate elements of ballistics if that is the author's original intent. Without such fundamental changes, the work appears to be an interesting linguistic observation better suited for a general interest publication or a blog post rather than a peer-reviewed journal.

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