ology,ological,ism

[nix-j-c]

if you say psycology or psycological to me i know what the difference is but whats the actual difference between ologys and ologicals and whats seperates them from isms? plus is an 'ist' something that is aimed at a particular kind of person that seperates them from everyone else and ends up offending them like racist and sexist.

p.s. there might be some more similar endings that i post as a reply because 've forgotten them.

[Pigletion]

ology is the study of, ological is pertaining to the study of, an ist is one who studies and an ism is usually the practice of (or a theory, belief system).

This is a fairly loose interpretation of the suffixes. Googling for the etymology of the words might help.

Also, for example being called a biologist is not offensive, it is just one who studies biology

[Buenchico]

"_ist" is used, among other things, to denote a person with certain beliefs. I can't see that there's any element of offence (on either side) in anyone referring to myself as an atheist, or to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a deist.

"_ist" is also, of course, simply used to relate a person to certain things or activities, as in 'cyclist' or 'dentist'.

"_ism" has a variety of uses. These include forming nouns, from 'catchwords', to denote certain systems or principles (as in 'Conservatism') or forming nouns, from 'root nouns' (such as 'hero') which denote a type of conduct related to those nouns (as in 'heroism').

"_logy" is derived from the Greek for 'science (of)'. So 'psychology' is (loosely) 'the science of the mind'.

Words ending in "_logy" are nouns. The adjectives and adverbs which are derived from them end in "_logical". So a 'psychological thriller' is one which has a relationship to psychology.

Chris

[Bert]

Actually, the suffix -logy (or -ology) is derived from the Greek word 'logos', which means 'word' or 'reason' (in the sense of 'reasoning' with the mind, rather than 'the reason why'). It is also the word from which 'logic' is derived.
-graphy comes from the Greek 'graphein', to write.
It seems a little bit odd to me that 'geology' and 'geography' are very different subjects (though both are obviously connected with the Earth).

[nix-j-c]

oh yeah ists can be used to segregate someone ten cause offense to them but i didnt think of the other words ending init.