Said kwenzel, in the first post of the day, which is about the meaning of "path."

Wikipedia knows...



... what the OED does not:



"Homology" is the quality of sameness.


"Podology" is the branch of medicine that deals with the feet — a less-familiar alternative to "podiatry."

"Chorology" is the study of the geographical extent or limit of something (for example, crayfish).

"Horology" is the science of measuring time. The "hor-" attached to "-ology" just means "hour."

"Codology" is a specifically Irish sort of hoaxing. The OED quotes James Joyce — "The why and the wherefore and all the codology of the business" — and the Daily Express (1928) — "There is in Ireland a science unknown to us in England called Codology... The English is ‘leg-pulling’... When I received an invitation to breakfast at the Dublin Zoo I thought that I could detect the hand of the chief codologist."

It's the "-ology" ending stuck on "cod," which is a slang term for a hoax or joke. Here's James Joyce again:

You went there when you wanted to do something... And behind the door of one of the closets there was a drawing in red pencil of a bearded man in a Roman dress with a brick in each hand and underneath was the name of the drawing:

Balbus was building a wall.

Some fellow had drawn it there for a cod. It had a funny face but it was very like a man with a beard.... Perhaps that was why they were there because it was a place where some fellows wrote things for cod....

But back to "hodology," which Wikipedia says is "the study of pathways." I click on the Wikipedia links to "Psychology," "Philosophy," "Geology," and "Neuroscience," and the word "hodology" appears on none of the pages. Is this a cod? I don't know. But I love the drawing on the page for neuroscience...



Drawing by Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1899) of neurons in the pigeon cerebellum. It takes me back to one of my favorite subjects, How to Draw Like Paul Klee.