word choice - "Henceforth" vs. "hereinafter"


What is the most suitable way to express that a sentence/word will be "replaced by" another sentence/word, from that point (in a text, for instance)?




  • Henceforth called/named...

  • Hereinafter called/named...




Answer



They are both suitable, but the difference between them is that hereinafter (sometimes written as two words, herein after) usually pertains just to writing within a document, While henceforth is more general, and just means from now on. For what it's worth, I've only ever seen hereinafter in legal documents (my rent contract, most recently).


So, for example, you could say:



Henceforth, we shall not go to 7-11 for hot dogs.



but you could not say:



*Hereinafter, we shall not go to 7-11 for hot dogs.



Within the context of a document, either might be used, but hereinafter specifically limits itself to the document or corpus in which it appears. Therefore, it is often the preferable choice for coining a replacement term or phrase:



Hereinafter[?Henceforth], the hot dogs shall be referred to as exhibit B.



That does not mean that you cannot write henceforth in a document, however. For example, you could write:



In this thesis, I will support the idea that henceforth, all hot dogs should be called hot pigs.



Hereinafter would not be appropriate, since it places too much of a limit on the scope of the author's claim.


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