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While checking out a website today, I learned another ugly yet practical neologism - informatics. Once I read the definition given in an online medical dictionary, I was forced to concede that this is another one of those ungraceful coinages that fill an important niche, like compactified. What interested me was that www.dictionary.com said that the word was chiefly Brit I saw the word on a British website, and on running the word past my spell-checkers, it was accepted without a second glance by the British and Australian spell-checkers installed, but balked at by the American English spell-checker. I mention this by way of a defence against any who say that only Americans are capable of coming up with with truly ugly neologisms. I'm not saying that informatics is up there with prioritise, but it is certainly giving compactified a run for its money. Whoever said that Truth is Beauty had obviously never had to read late 20th/early 21st Century scientific English. 
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Max, While I hate ugly, unnecessary neologisms as much as the next guy, this informatrix is under the impression that informatics is actually® a loan word - from the French, I think. It does fill a niche, if you want single word for computer science. It's also the word for such in Portuguese, and I'd wager it's used in other Latinate languages, as well. This is one case where they managed to lend us a word, in lieu of vice-versa  .
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While I hate ugly, unnecessary neologisms as much as the next guy, this informatrix is under the impression that informatics is actually® a loan word - from the French, I think.
Mercy buckets, StrophicAnna.
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old hand
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I think you're right Anna. In German, computing also carries the title Informatik. In English we just can't seem to decide what we want to call it. Take your pick:
Computer Science
Information Technology (what a joke)
Information Science
Informatics
In any case, I'm not particularly partial to any of these terms, but I'd be happy if a majority would decide on one!
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The bruising young chappie believes that: Computer Science
Information Technology (what a joke)
Information Science
Informaticsare synonyms. Wrong, sorry. They're technical terms, and all have distinct and quite distinctly different purposes. YCLIU. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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> are synonyms.
Did I say that?
> ...all have distinct and quite distinctly different purposes
I hit a nerve, huh. Let me just say, that it seems a lot of people are not very happy with these designations, resulting in coinages left, right and centre.
I found this info at dictionary.com:
information science -
The science that is concerned with the gathering, manipulation, classification, storage, and retrieval of recorded knowledge.
information technology -
<business, jargon> (IT) Applied computer systems - both hardware and software, and often including networking and telecommunications, usually in the context of a business or other enterprise. Often the name of the part of an enterprise that deals with all things electronic.
The term "computer science" is usually reserved for the more theoretical, academic aspects of computing, while the vaguer terms "information systems" (IS) or "information services" may include more of the human activities and non-computerised business processes like knowledge management. Others say that IT includes computer science.
Informatics -
Information science.
computer science -
the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structures
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enthusiast
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The department where I work is named
Dipartimento di Matematica ed Informatica.
The most conservative among the (old) professors didn't like to add "Informatica", since they felt it was like to betray pure Mathematics just to be cool - and to obtain more easily money!
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Our favorite junior Pooh-Bah complains about truly ugly neologisms citing informatics as an example. He goes on to say that he's not saying that informatics is up there with prioritise...
Are you saying that prioritise is uglier than informatics? No, no, no! Informatics has all sharp edges and ugly angles to it; pritoritise is all soft with rounded edges and cleanly flowing lines. Even if you do spell it funny.
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> prioritise
I myself, personally, don't think it's that ugly, but its meaning is certainly not very clear without sufficient context.
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addict
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meaning [of prioritise] is certainly not very clear without sufficient context
I don't have a problem with either the meaning, or sound, or usage of either "prioritise" or "informatics".
"Prioritise" means [to me] to allocate a priority to an item/task/etc. relative to others, similar to "categorise".
Rod
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