Mildly Interesting

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Holistic is probably not Wholistic because an author wanted to sound smart (lemmy.nowsci.com)

submitted 4 days ago by fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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The author of Holism and Evolution, Jan Smuts, used the Greek word "holos" as the root of "holism" instead of "whole" (the book was English, and "whole" was commonplace). In later years, wholistic was coined, but never caught on. While there could be other reasons for the choice than making it sound more scientific, it sure seems to be the case.

This is one of those examples of the English language that annoys me.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/holistic

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism

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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

People often use Greek or Latin roots for new terms if they want them to be used internationally, without biasing usage to one language.

This was probably the case for Smuts, who was a committed internationalist and whose native language was Afrikaans rather than English.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 points 4 days ago

Makes sense. Still annoying 😆