Author Topic: Biol  (Read 2414 times)

Morbius

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Biol
« on: May 02, 2014, 06:32:02 PM »
A little while back, the word econ (a contraction of economics) was added to the list of acceptable words after a suggestion from (I think) Tom44.  In the same vein, I tried biol in yesterday's 10 letter puzzle, but it was rejected.  I'd suggest that biol is as widely known as econ and should also be added.

ensiform

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Re: Biol
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2014, 10:17:17 PM »
For what it's worth (nothing), I don't think I agree.  I would say the word econ (EE-con) in conversation, but the word biol (BYE-awl?) sounds strange and much less euphonious to me.

mkenuk

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Re: Biol
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2014, 10:27:44 PM »
Fine, but as an abbreviation (for Biology, presumably) shouldn't it have a full stop / period after it? Wouldn't it then be precluded by the Chi rules, which don't allow 'words normally written with a punctuation mark'?

OTOH, if 'econ' can 'get away with it', why not other standard school subjects? - phys, chem, geog, hist - that was how I and generations of school-pupils used to write them on our timetables.

MK
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Morbius

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Re: Biol
« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2014, 08:37:28 AM »
Ensiform, I don't know if it's a regional thing, but Australian students certainly do say 'biol'.

MK, I'd agree that 'chem' is also consistent with the precedent set by including 'econ', but not the others you mention, because people don't actually say 'phys' or 'hist' or 'geog'.  They're only written abbreviations.  People do say 'chem', however (at least they do here in Australia).

ensiform

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Re: Biol
« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2014, 11:01:48 AM »
Well... Australians say a lot of non-euphonious things!  (Kidding!  I love my Oceanic brothers' colorful language.)

Anyway, right, some abbreviations become words because they are said often enough - like math / maths.

rogue_mother

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Re: Biol
« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2014, 11:51:13 PM »
Math/maths is a good analogy. In my academic days, we would certainly have said econ and chem for economics and chemistry, but for biology we would have said bio, not biol.
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Alan W

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Re: Biol
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2020, 02:00:23 PM »
Why do some word suggestions hang around for 6+ years without a response? Well one reason is that sometimes a suggestion blossoms out into multiple suggestions, so I wearily put it aside. But as this is now, as far as I know, the only outstanding new word suggestion - aside from those involving the dreaded "plurals" rule - I'm determined to dispense with it.

So I'm resolutely ignoring issues like chem, phys, hist, etc, and focusing exclusively on biol.

I never actually took a subject called Biology, so I have no memory of what students called it. In the case of econ I was able to find some examples from fiction of the word being used as a casual term for economics. I can't find any similar examples for biol. It could be that the word is used quite often in conversation, but I can't see any evidence for it, so I'm leaving it out of our list for now.
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