Clionyms

English is full of Latin and bits of Greek: scientific language even more so. We have inherited a stack of prefixes, infixes, and postfixes from those classical bases which we often find shuffled around to make new words. A common language pastime is to stick a unusual prefix onto a word stem and try to figure out if it has any meaning. Sometimes theorists do this to express nuances of meaning that can’t be conveyed by an existing term. Sometimes its just an excuse to introduce new jargon. 

Cliology is a contrivance using the name of the muse of history and fame (Clio) as a prefix. Flynn coined this as a fictional discipline of meta-history in his novel ‘In the Country of the Blind’. An actual scientific approach to the patterns of past, present, and future history might be called Cliology as coming from “clio-” and “logos”. Indeed, Turchin has employed a similar term Cliodynamics in his work.

A scientific study of history and fame isn’t so much new, but rather it has been marginalised. However, it has recently started to become respectible and popular as Cultural Evolution theory threatens to swamp the humanities. Instead we might contend that it is newly fasionable. As new theories and principles begin to emerge at an ever growing pace, then this evolutionary bloom will demand descriptive lables that can be met by lexical recombinations. Sticking “clio-” in front of various themes would do the job, well at least on this website. In a self-reflextive mood, the word clionym is a viable option to cover the whole class of contrived words for an invented science (“-nym” as in synonym, homonym etc.). Here are a few I’ve found or fabricated myself so far:

• clio-logy: the scientific study of fame and meta-history (attributed to Flynn)
• clio-nym: words starting with “clio-” pertaining to cliology
• clio-n: (pl. Clia) Cultural Linnean Information Object [Nomenclature]; the fundamental operational taxonomic unit of cultural natural history.
• clio-nomy: the systematic identification, naming, and arrangement of clia
• clio-gram: arrangement of clionomy as a dendrogram (tree)
• clio-graph: a description of cliology; past or future historiograph, possibly infographic
• clio-analysis: analysis of the literature or historical event from a cliological perspective.
• clio-synthesis: methodical recombination of historical dynamics to anticipate and direct events.
• clio-technology: software supported methods of clio-analysis and clio-synthesis
• clio-metrics: a qualatative approach to social and economic history; attributed to Reiter
• clio-dynamics: an integration of cultural evolution, social history and cliometrics; attributed to Turchen.
• clio-doodle: a diagram using grand framework components such as noams and memes.
• clio-logist: coined by Flynn
• clionomist: someone who taxonomises clia; or possibly engaged in economic concerns of cliology.
• cliologen: someone engaged in the more esoteric concerns of cliology.