On the plurality of words: The portmanteau word of geosophy and its persistence in the disciplinary baggage of geography

Abstract

Since the final decades of the nineteenth century geographers have maintained a commitment to employing language that is accessible and understood by as many as possible. This disciplinary goal has motivated the making and use of maps, globes and other images such as photographs. Whilst confirming this argument, this article shows that geographers have also enjoyed wordplay and that they have persistently had recourse to verbal invention in communicating geographical ideas to a diversifying demographic of audiences across a widening geographical and disciplinary spectrum over the period 1887 to 1947. In tracing the historical and geographical variations of the term ‘geosophy’, the article shows how this word circulated perceptions of time and space and an informed philosophy of geographical ideals and materials. The recurring refrain of geosophy elucidates understandings of verbal and visual invention and emulation. It concludes that the plurality of definitions of the portmanteau word geosophy are commensurate with the perception of the plurality of worlds and the relativity of worlds of knowledge.