Coyote writes:
Sounds like there would be no problem if they called it the "String hypothesis" then.
The common usage of "theory" invades most all of the sciences.
The problem I see is
real science, like the real world, doesn't actually follow the format taught by academics. When I went through college, we learned the usual format of research that I'm sure everyone is familiar with. When I actually started doing research, I was told nobody actually follows the typical format.
We are taught one definition of "theory" in the classroom and then we apply another for the word in the real world.