Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Best neologism ever!

Author : Jonge, Derk de.
Title : Hodos: the way, applied hodology.

Locations/Orders : Availability
Location : Loeb Design Analytic [To locate, search for the title of the journal in which it appears.] Holdings Availability

In : Landscape, winter 1967-1968, vol. 17:2, pp. 10-11, 19-21; with illus.
HOLLIS Number : 003841842

Hodos is the Ancient Greek word for road or path, from which we get the term "odometer" (early neologisms tended to reflect the Modern Greek pronunciation of Greek and not that of the restored Erasmian scheme, which is why odometer and hodology can be derived from the same word, which didn't begin with an 'h' but a rough breathing mark over the initial vowel; nevertheless we in the States transliterate the initial rough breathing as 'h' in accordance with the ALA-LC Romanization Table, Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts, 1997 edition). "Hodology" is thus the study of pathways, be they neural pathways in the field of medicine or literal pathways in the discipline of geography. I'm not sure, however, what "applied hodology" would be.

Nevertheless, I have a sudden inexplicable hankering to become an applied hodologist...

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