Morology

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Dr. Goodword
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Morology

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Jul 17, 2017 11:15 pm

• morology •


Pronunciation: mê-rah-lê-jee • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Foolish or silly talk, nonsense. 2. The scientific study of silly talk. (?)

Notes: The -ology suffix on this word is misleading, since there is no scientific study of morons, the usual meaning of that suffix. That would be moronic. So, morologist means "someone who talks foolishly" rather than a student of morons. The adjective would be morologic or morological.

In Play: If you need a touch of gravitas or 'scientificity' when you talk of nonsense, here's the word for you: "I couldn't make heads or tails out the president's morology at his press conference today, could you?" You may find uses around the house, too: "Mom, all your reasons for grounding me are sheer morology, not logic."

Word History: Today's Good Word was taken from Middle French morologie, inherited from post-classical Latin morologia "foolish talking", which borrowed it from ancient Greek morologia "foolish talking". The Greek word was based on morologos "that talks foolishly", made up of moros "foolish, stupid" + -logos "word, idea". The neuter of Greek moros was moron, which was also used as a noun meaning "folly", a word English hungrily gobbled up. The word is not used to denote a person in Greek because the neuter usually represents inanimate categories. Moros is a cognate of Sanskrit murah "idiotic". Latin morus "foolish" is a loan-word from Greek.
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Slava
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Re: Morology

Postby Slava » Sun Aug 13, 2023 8:12 am

Given what I take to be the human tendency for gigantomania, perhaps we need to coin 'moreology'? Which could lead us, via the 'less is more' concept, to 'lessology'.
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bbeeton
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Re: Morology

Postby bbeeton » Sun Aug 13, 2023 12:01 pm

One of my favorite t-shirts carries the statement

"The Universe is made of protons, neutrons, electrons and morons"

I haven't met anyone who has challenged that assumption. Perhaps that last has some affinity to dark matter or dark energy.

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Slava
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Re: Morology

Postby Slava » Sun Aug 13, 2023 12:12 pm

Well, seriously, there is such a thing as a gluon. Which is not to be compared to an iron-on.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

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Re: Morology

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Aug 14, 2023 8:35 am

"The Universe is made of protons, neutrons, electrons and morons"


A brilliant insight—linguistically speaking, that is.
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