‘Bizarre’ linguistics paper on water retracted by Springer Nature

A “bizarre” linguistics paper claiming the ancient Greeks forbade reference to water as “H₂O” has been retracted by a Springer Nature journal after experts expressed disbelief that the “rambling” and “methodologically weak” article had ever been published.

Within days of its publication in the open access journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications on 3 January, linguistics experts on social media had flagged numerous concerns with the article, titled A cross-linguistic investigation of /h/ symbolism: the case of H2O, which purported to explore the words used in different languages for water throughout history.

The paper also explored both h-acquisition and h-dropping (aitch-dropping) in different languages, how this links to words for water, if sound symbolism related to word formation and whether this effect changes within “modern or primitive languages”.

While these subjects are seen as valid areas of linguistics, one language expert told Times Higher Education that the bewildering array of subjects contained in the paper by Jordanian academic Rasheed Al-Jarrah had prompted shock and bemusement among colleagues – one of whom feared the paper “could bring linguistics into disrepute” as it was so “methodologically weak”.

“It’s surprising that a respected journal in the Nature group would publish this,” he said.

“The paper hops from one half-formed idea to another, never to return to the earlier ones. We have bits about the nature of water being connected to words for ‘water’ in various languages, and to the shape of the letter H,” he explained.

Another linguistics expert told THE that the paper was “rambling and bizarre”, noting the outdated use of the term “primitive languages” to describe non-Semitic or European languages.

Another queried Al-Jarrah’s claim that ancient Greeks had forbidden the use of “H₂O” or “HO” in relation to water given this chemical formula was only discovered in the late 18th century. “They did not ever use ‘HO’ for water so they could not limit any reference to it,” they explained, noting the actual Greek word for water was ὕδωρ.

Six days after the article was published, the journal added a notice of concern stating “editorial action will be taken as appropriate” once an investigation was complete. Springer Nature has confirmed to Times Higher Education that the paper will be retracted.

Concerns have also been raised about its references. Prior to a quote from the Koran one sentence explains “God’s life-giving gift, water, is the cause for the creation of gardens”, citing a page from a 1920 book on Greek philosophers by the classicist John Burnet, which does not refer to water or gardens.

Asked by THE about the impending retraction, Al-Jarrah said he was “taken aback” as the paper had been through two rounds of review when theoretical concerns could have raised.

“Concerns about the citations could be fixed [with a correction] because they are surely unintentional mistakes,” he added, noting he had submitted the paper a year ago and paid the article processing charge a month ago.

Despite the swift editorial action, scholars have questioned whether the multidisciplinary journal’s governance might have contributed to the decision to approve the paper, noting it has 2,750 people on its editorial board.

Gino D’Oca, the journal’s chief editor, told THE that the large board reflected that it was “a large journal that covers all areas of the humanities, social and behavioural sciences and, in 2025, published almost 2,000 articles”.

With an acceptance rate of 13 per cent this “scale [of operation] requires a correspondingly large editorial board so that every submission sent for peer review can be handled by an editorial board member (EBM) or internal editor with relevant expertise, maintaining quality standards and providing timely responses to authors”.

D’Oca added that the journal, which was founded as Palgrave Communications in 2014 before obtaining its new name in 2020, was “committed to ensuring that all submissions…are carefully and rigorously assessed, including undergoing thorough peer review”.

“We have concluded that whilst the paper was reviewed by two academics in a relevant discipline, the reviews and the editorial handling were insufficient, and concerns about the academic content were valid,” D’Oca added.

Confirming that the paper would be retracted, he added that “further checks are ongoing to confirm this was an isolated incident. The editorial board member who handled the paper has left the journal’s editorial board.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com