The title isn't great, sorry, I couldn't really come up with anything better 😀 Here's a bit of context:
I'm working on my thesis and am currently writing down the historical evolution of a certain subject, and I got to a point where I wrote something like this:
[…], underlining the importance of Foo in order to achieve Bar.
Directly after that sentence, I want to express that the importance of Foo has been acknowledged many times after the writing I am referring to in the quoted sentence. I was thinking of something like this:
The importance of Foo has been henceforth acknowledged in many sources […]
So my questions are:
- Is it even possible to use "henceforth" in this manner, and if so
- Is it still commonly used, especially in a scientific environment, or does it just sound terribly outdated
Best Answer
Henceforth means "from here forward". With a present or present construction, it points the reader forward from the time of utterance. In your case, that would mean "from now forward", the present in which you write and your readers read. This is not, I think, what you want. The acknowledgements occurred before the present.
You could resolve this by casting your verb in the past, the time referred to, and saying "The importance of Foo was thenceforth acknowledged . . ."—thenceforth meaning "from there (i.e. then) forward". But while henceforth has a modest currency in academic and other highly formal writing, thenceforth has an inescapable odour of archaism. Again, not what you want.
I suggest KISS:
It's acceptable both formally and colloquially.