ABSTRACT
A word does not a concept make. Some words do, of course, denote meaningful concepts—and even in the absence of denotative specificity, words can communicate important concepts to those who share a common social (here social/scientific) "ground." My own view is that the social sciences, even psychology, tend to be so awash in a sea (often riptide) of words that the assumption—explicit or implicit—that certain words convey scientific concepts shoulders a burden of proof. For example, just because we label phenomena "implicit memory" or "repression" or "forgetting" does not imply a unity to be assumed rather than proved. In this critique, I point out distinctions that the authors of the three chapters I am discussing do not make—and question some they do make.
