"foodomics" and other omics

[Ronald Butters]

Is this different from foodology?

On Feb 14, 2011, at 10:35 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> No idea whether it rhymes with "comics" or "NO-mix", but here it is,
>> in an e-mail sent out to me and possibly some of you, from
>> <foodomics at unibo.it>:
>>
>> We are pleased to inform you that the 2nd International Conference
>> "Food-Omics: a science for nutrition, health and wellness in the
>> post-genomic era" will take place in Cesena (Italy), on June 22-24,
>> 2011.
>>
>> Food-Omics 2011 will be the scientific forum where academic and
>> industrial scientists involved in food and nutrition research will
>> discuss about the most recent advances in the "omics" approach. The
>> key themes will be OMIC SCIENCES FOR FOOD (Food Quality and
>> Biodiversity), FOOD FOR OPTIMAL NUTRITION (Nutrigenetics,
>> Nutrigenomics), FOOD FOR WELLNESS (Ageing and Disease Prevention) and
>> INDUSTRIAL FOOD IMPROVEMENT (Processing and Biotechnology). [...]
>
> The mention of "nutrigenomics" makes it clear that this is the
> "OH-mix" type of -omics, nothing to do with economics, ergonomics, or
> comics. The suffix came up in discussions of "culturomics" (2010 ADS
> WOTY winner in the Least Likely to Succeed category)  -- see my Word
> Routes column on the topic:
>
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2551/
>
> So apparently "omic(s)" has been lexicalized, following the rough path
> of "hamburger" > "-burger" > "burger". Here's an example of adjectival
> "omic":
>
> ---
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15935808
> Chem Biol Interact. 2005 May 30;153-154:123-7. Epub 2005 Apr 19.
> Use of 'Omic' technologies to study humans exposed to benzene.
> 'Omic' technologies include genomics, transcriptomics (gene expression
> profiling), proteomics and metabolomics.
> ---
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org