dilogy, duology

[Jonathan Lighter]

You are manifestly one erudite mofo, Wilson, so I'll forgive you for criticizing my ignorant creation of "duology," utterly independently of Wiki-Waki and its sources, to be sure.  Further proof that limited minds think alike.

  Bonus Bummer: OED lacks *dyology as well.

  (An early appearance of "Wiki-Waki" or something related:

  (1928 Mort Dixon & Harry Warren _Nagasaki_ (pop. song): Back in Nagasaki where the fellers chew tobaccy / And the women wicky wacky woo.

  (I believe Dos Passos quotes part of this in _The Big Money_.)

  JL


Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: dilogy, duology
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've never come across either of these words before and I'm going to
have to look up "diology" to see how it's derived. My guess is that
that the "di-" is from Greek "dis," corresponding to Latin "bis" and
likewise meaning "twice." But "duology" is clearly, IMO, a
pswaydo-learned bit of pretentiousness. (That may be a bit harsh, but,
WTF?) In general, words in English derived from Greek are derived from
Attic and not Homeric. ("Hubris," instead of "hybris," is one of very
few exceptions.) Therefore, the form should be "dyology," not
"duology." Unless the coiner is combining *Latin* "duo" with Greek
"-ology." In that case, I can only shake my head in sorrow and once
again lament the death of the classical education. I'd rather see
"twainology" or even "twoology." At least, neither of those would be
pretentious.

-Wilson

On 11/28/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: dilogy, duology
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wikipedia speaks:
>
> "Duology also known as dilogy is a set of two works of art, usually a two-part series relating to literature or film, that develop a single theme over two works. A duology may or may not involve a sequel and/or prequel."
>
> OED lacks "duology" and includes "dilogy" only in different senses.
>
> "Duology," at least, gets thousands of raw Googlits. (Tomorrow's Inglish-speakers will undoubtedly prefer "biology" in the indicated sense.)
>
> But seriously: OED appears to lack any single word meaning "a two-part literary, dramatic, or cinematic work" to complement "trilogy" and "tetralogy." I was groping for such a word to describe Herman Wouk's _Winds of War_ and its sequel _War and Remembrance_. Yeah, there's "two-volume novel," but I said "single word."
>
> I came up with "duology," but if Wikipedia already endorses it I may wait for a second round of inspiration.
>
> JL
>
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