Food technology

La reologia is rheology, the study of how matter flows, and the first half of the term is a Greek verb that English readers already own without noticing. Rhein meant to flow, and rheos was a current or a stream. Greek built on that root the names of anything that runs, and medicine carried several of them into English with the sense untouched. « Catarrh » is kata- plus the same verb, a flowing down, which is exactly what a cold does to a nose. « Diarrhoea » is dia- plus the verb, a flowing through. So the word on this page, coined for a laboratory that measures whether a sauce runs or holds its shape, is a near relative of two complaints nobody would file under physics. The Italian form shows the root more plainly than ours does, because Italian writes no Greek aspirate at all: reologia, as in reumatismo and ritmo. English kept the silent letter and spells « rheology », and that spelling is the only real difficulty the word has for anyone reading across.