Badomics words and the power and peril of the ome-meme

Gigascience. 2012 Jul 12;1(1):6. doi: 10.1186/2047-217X-1-6.

Abstract

Languages and cultures, like organisms, are constantly evolving. Words, like genes, can come and go-spreading around or going extinct. Here I discuss the spread of one small subset of words that are meant to convey "comprehensiveness" in some way: the "omes" and other words derived from "genome" or "genomics." I focus on a bad aspect of this spread the use of what I refer to as "badomics" words. I discuss why these should be considered bad and how to distinguish badomics words from good ones.

Publication types

  • Editorial