Is it really the same word? holistic comes from Greek ὅλος, whereas whole is a word of Germanic origin.
Of course that doesn't mean they aren't from the same Indo-European root — after all, whole certainly has cognates in many languages with the same meaning, such as Russian целый. But Wiktionary tells me that whole is from Proto-Indo-European ٭kóylos, whereas holistic is from PIE
٭solh₂wós.
In any case, the initial w in whole is an innovation in Early Modern English without etymological justification, so a more logical choice to emphasize the similarity would be to revert to the spelling hole.
Probably not, but I was speaking much more informally. :) To be honest, I don't care whether it makes sense linguistically or not. It takes more than one hand to count the number of times I've looked up the meaning of holistic, because I encounter it in a context I care about so infrequently that I can never remember the meaning (at least I can never remember it accurately enough to not be unsure whether I have it correct. From context you can get the gist, but nuance may be lost). Wholistic works entirely better for me.
Is it really the same word? holistic comes from Greek ὅλος, whereas whole is a word of Germanic origin.
Of course that doesn't mean they aren't from the same Indo-European root — after all, whole certainly has cognates in many languages with the same meaning, such as Russian целый. But Wiktionary tells me that whole is from Proto-Indo-European ٭kóylos, whereas holistic is from PIE ٭solh₂wós.
In any case, the initial w in whole is an innovation in Early Modern English without etymological justification, so a more logical choice to emphasize the similarity would be to revert to the spelling hole.