• Question: Why doesn't psycology begin with an S?

    Asked by klbkelly to Freya, Katy, Louise, Pamela on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Pendry

      Louise Pendry answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Help! You tell me! 🙁

    • Photo: Pamela Docherty

      Pamela Docherty answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      It’s derived from Greek. It means ‘study of the soul’, from the Greek ‘psykhe’, meaning ‘soul’, and ‘logia’, meaning ‘study of’.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Why doesn’t Physics start with an F?

      Psychology comes from a greek words: Psyche (soul/mind) and logia (study). In Greek there is a letter “psi” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi_(letter)) and that’s the first letter of Psyche.

    • Photo: Katy Milne

      Katy Milne answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      I think the word has roots in Greek. That is why we have words like psychology and psychiatry. Maybe we should change the spelling to sicology and sikiatry, but I love the fact that English is such a mash of other languages (Greek, Latin, German, Viking) and that it is so fluid so I would probably keep it.

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