English Language & Usage Asked by Digcoal on March 30, 2021
For instance, we have two patterns for terms to describe sexual atteaction, one of which intersects a pattern for terms to describe a deep fondness for.
Homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual follow a pattern of {object of sexual attraction]+”-sexual”.
Necrophile and pedophile follow a similar pattern but replaces “-sexual” with “-phile”.
Then, we have bibliophile and technophile that follow a similar pattern but replaces {object of sexual attraction] with {object of attraction/fondness].
The first and third categories make etymological sense, whereas the second category is in disparity with historical definitions of the root words. Is there a term for the first and third categories along the lines of “homo-etymological” or “etymological parity”, and a term for the second group along the lines of “herero-etymological” or “etymological disparity”?
Is there a term that describes a word that takes the logical definition of another word that may or may not exist? For example: pedophile taking the definition for the word that should mean “a fondness for children.”
Is there a term for the process of bringing terms to etymological parity?
Ultimately, conflation and imprecise language has resulted in imprecise conversations regarding pedophiles. Three demographics are affected by the “mis-coining” of one word, and the conflation of another. Demographic one: one who has a fondness for children should have been termed pedophiles. Demographic two: one who is sexually attracted to children should have been termed “pedosexuals.” Demographic three: one who has sexually molested a child is a “child molester.” In many discussions, pedophile (which should have been pedosexual) has been conflated with child molesters. Many fail to realize that pedophilism is an abnormal state of mind, whereas child molestation is the act of a horrendous crime. Very few make that distinction which creates an unnecessarily hostile environment for the disturbed who have not yet acted.
The original question was about the rules/patterns involved in the formation of composite words, rather than the particular words in the examples.
The answer is that all the words cited in the question are derived from ancient or mediaeval Greek or Latin.
Some words derived in this way are imported directly from the source languages, where the corresponding composites already existed. Geometry is an example. Here the compository rule was the use of the letter ‘o’. Greek has two ‘o’s - ‘omicron’, the same as the ‘o’ of most European languages, and the ‘omega’, a longer vowel sound, more like the word awe in classical times, though school kids of my generation were taught to pronounce it like ‘oh dear’. It comes from γη (land where the η is a lengthened ‘e’ as in ‘air’, but today as in ‘eat’) and μετρια (measurement). So the Greeks shortened the ‘e’ and added an omega. Latin adopted the word lock, stock and barrel. English does the same but replaces the final ‘ia’ with ‘y’. French replaces ‘ia’ with ‘ie’ (géométrie), while Italian is the same as the Latin.
Later, European scientists, lawyers, doctors and scholars began to make up their own composites, based on paired GrecoRoman words, first because they were writing in Latin (as did Newton or Leibniz - who coined our word ‘calculus’), and later coining new compounds into English, German, French or other European languages, as appropriate. In doing so, they followed the patterns already established in the ancient languages.
Some such patterns have shifted. So what was spelled paedo has tended to lose the ‘a’ and become ‘pedo-‘. A pedometer is an instrument for measuring children but measuring pedestrian speed. And ‘a pedophile’ is certainly not someone with an erotic attraction to feet, though I believe such people do exist. This is unfortunate, but the way of evolution, now that knowledge of ancient languages is ebbing away and no longer controls the publication of language.
However, The question itself omits the vast teutonic fields of English, which allows words to fuse together without any alphabetic glue. sunshine, doorstep, makeup, bookend. Germanic English is really democratic. We can invent new ideas without old codgers like me scoffing at our mistakes with the Greek and Latin we were never taught at school!
Answered by Tuffy on March 30, 2021
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