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In Architecture the word typology is used to describe a group or type of buildings.

For example here it is being used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-LjOZT8Nxw&t=1m05s

I find overly confusing as intuitively I hear words with ology to be the study of something, geology - study of the earth, ornithology - study of birds, scientology - study of being in a cult (ha), and so on.

For me typology is the study of types and if you doing typology and categorizing buildings as an architect those categories would be types.

I know the jargon of different fields may not stick to the strict definition of a word. And maybe quite different, but this one seems especially wrong and confusing.

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  • What did you find in a dictionary? Please report that, along with what you find "wrong" about it.
    – GEdgar
    Commented Dec 14, 2019 at 21:31
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    Don't ever get into computer programming!
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 14, 2019 at 23:16
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it requires us to follow a Youtube link.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 0:04
  • @Hot Licks - I happen to be a programmer. Perhaps I am just more used to that jargon. :)
    – ian
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 3:35
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    Include the sentence(s) from the cited source in text form.
    – Kris
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 12:06

1 Answer 1

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The words whose primary meaning is the name of a field of study often have a secondary meaning which means, roughly, 'the properties that would be of interest to that field of study'. Compare with the following sample sentences:

The geology of the basin is such that there are relatively fertile soils on young alluvium (source)
However, the biology of the pig is such that although it might be comfortable when kept within a certain temperature regime, it might not necessarily be commercially productive. (source)

For example, the geology of the basin can be interpreted, roughly, as those properties of the basin which would be of interest to (or which would be studied in) geology.

Similarly, in their primary meaning, physics and chemistry are scientific disciplines. Nevertheless, one can say things like the following, where they clearly mean 'those properties of ___ which are normally studied in physics/chemistry':

The free surface conditions have altered the physics of the situation, giving solutions that in mathematics are more usual to equations of hyperbolic type. (source)
Thus, the dissolved filter changes the chemistry of the sample and may itself contribute to the instrument readout. (source)

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    This explains why the word is not limited to study of types, and it is indeed true that it often has the meaning of a system of classification. The OP, however, says that in architecture, the word is often used for a 'type of buildings', i.e. for an item in a classification, rather than for a system of classifying buildings into different types. If that's how the word is used in architecture, that appears to be at odds with how it is used in every other field. The answer does not address this (apparent) anomaly.
    – jsw29
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 5:02
  • The anatomy of something is generally of great interest.
    – Kris
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 12:07
  • @jsw29 - Yes, in architecture someone might say something like: The typology of this building is Farm House, or Roman. This seems to differ from the explanation linguisticturn is giving: "The geology of the basin is such that there are relatively fertile soils on young alluvium" where that is in fact a description of the qualities of the geology of the basin.
    – ian
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 21:33
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    @jsw29 I plan to expand this answer with examples that are more closely related to the OP's (such as this space has the topology of a torus), but I think my answer already addresses what I take to be the main concern of the OP, namely, that -logy words should be denoting fields of study. Once we point out counterexamples to that theory, I think it becomes easy to accept that such words might have still other uses as well.
    – linguisticturn
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 21:37
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    @ian Please see my comment addressed to jsw29, above.
    – linguisticturn
    Commented Dec 15, 2019 at 21:37

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