Academic research plays a vital role in constantly improving the definitions of technical terms across all fields of knowledge, including fields where public awareness plays a major role and where words and phrases carry considerable cultural baggage and connotation. This reflects the reality that all phrases and their meanings are rooted in time and place: while the temporal and geographical contexts in which specific phrases are used may change, the words never completely lose touch with their original meanings. Etymology is, in this regard, the only academic discipline capable of preserving the original meaning of words throughout their various transformations. The rigorous process of philology is what ultimately allows the field of etymology to continue to be relevant even as words are separated from their original meanings contexts.