hocus-pocus (adj.)

A phrase coined in the 1950s to characterize one of two extreme states of mind in a hypothetical LINGUIST who sets up a DESCRIPTION of linguistic DATA; opposed to GOD’s TRUTH. ‘Hocus-pocus’ linguists approach data in the expectation that they will have to impose an organization on it in order to show STRUCTURAL patterns. Different linguists, on this view, could approach the same data, and by virtue of their different backgrounds, INTUITIONS, PROCEDURES, etc., arrive at differing descriptions. In a ‘God’s truth’ approach, by contrast, the aim is to demonstrate an underlying structure really present in the data over which there could be no dispute.