I think that might help. I honestly think that potential readers could find it seriously offputting, and Eliezer's obviously fine with editing previous posts so it could be made consistent too.
The odd thing is that I'm abnormally unconcerned by American accents in films of English stories etc: it's the written word that I find it so strange for. Possibly because a level of informality makes it more obvious.
I don't have the books to hand, but is research in journals necessarily enlightenment? You can see philosophical debate etc. going right back to scholastic philosophers and theologians, and if you throw in easier communication and production through magic then it wouldn't be surprising if correspodence or debate between magicians was in something we'd call a journal. The question is if there's meaningful peer review.
Regular journals are a very late phenomenon. They evolved from the proceedings of various societies. The use of journals is very much enlightenment or post-enlightenment culture. The Proceedings of the Royal Society doesn't start until 1800.Even then, initially that's published in large, irregular volumes. Many other journals considered very old are even younger. American Mathematical Monthly is published in the 1890s (although everything in North America was scientifically behind Europe until the 20th century. Thus, for example, geocentrism was taught as ...
This may be old news to some people, especially the Russian speakers, but I didn't see an article about it here.
In 1999, Kirill Yeskov, a Russian paleontologist, wrote The Last Ringbearer, a 270-page take on Lord of the Rings from the point of view of a medic in Mordor's dying armies who is also a "skeptic and a rationalist." In fact, Mordor represents the forces of reason in this retelling of the story. As a Nazgúl (himself a former mathematician) explains, Mordor is "the little oasis of Reason in which your light-minded civilization had so comfortably nestled." Barad-dur is "that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic."
The story has been newly translated and is available in free PDF form -- in English and the original Russian. There's a recent review from Salon as well.