It seems to me that we have only to sources to look for when creating a word:
latin or greek. True: many words we use every day come from diverse origins
like taboo, tsunami, chocolate,... but for the sake of simplicity we can stick
to latin and greek for this discussion.
If we lean towards greek then catasttrophology sounds like the right word to
use. katastrofe, in greek, means, ruins, destruction, end. The greek verb
katastrofon, means to destroy, to blow down, to subyugate, ro remove, to loot.
If we leaned towards Latin, we would need to resort to words like "clades"
(disaster, calamity, plague, defeat) , "calamitas" (calamity, disgrace) ,
"exitium" (ruin, loss, destruction, disaster), or even "vulnus" (wound,
strike, , disgrace, affliction).
The word catastrophology sounds to me as a staright solution: it is easy to
understand and communicate. Moreover, it comes from greek, which is in some
sense, the craddle of all knowledge (a good friend of mine says that nothing
new and worhtwile can be said today that has not been said by the greeks 2500
years ago)
However, the potential words derived from latin are worth a more careful
consideration. Calamitology and Cladology an vulnology would be vey good
solutions.
I do not fully agree with Roger Mussons assertion that since "ologist" comes
from greek, it should not be mixed with latin prefixes. "Logos" (word) is a
latin vocable, as well as a greek voacable. As such, the word calamitology
would be an acceptable one, with both prefix and sufux comign from the same
language.
We must acknowledge, though, that the greeks had a much richer body of
meanings for logos, including "philosophical discussion" (my greek dicitionary
devotes almost a page to the word logos, while the latin dictionary dedicates
only two lines). Furthermore, in greek, logist comes from logein (lambda.
epsilon, gamma, omega) , that means: to collect, put togetehr, to refer. In
this sense, "ologist" would be the one that not only "talks" about an issue,
but also the one who collects things about it (in our case: to collect facts,
ideas, knowledge, experiences...)
My prefered choice, would be vulnology. The study of disasters is, in my
view, the study of the process that make the society vulnerable to hazards.
Vulnology emphasizes the vulnerability aspects needed for an impact to have
consequences.
Cheers,
Armando Scalise
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