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Hot from a tog on BBC Radio 2's Terry Wogan programme:
homo and phobia are from two Greek words. homo means the same and phobia means fear, not hatred. Logically therefore homophobia is fear of (being) the same, not hatred of gay people.
Over to you, Deeej and cossie.
Hugs
Nigel
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Nigel said,
>homo and phobia are from two Greek words. homo means the same and phobia means fear, not hatred. Logically therefore homophobia is fear of (being) the same, not hatred of gay people.
Technically, yes: that is what it would mean to a Greek. Phobia (or rather, the Greek word φοβος) does mean fear: it is almost the same in English. I have never personally used it to mean hatred. Of course, hatred and fear are usually linked: I think most queer-bashers do fear gay people.
'Homosexual' is a slightly ugly hybrid word, a mixture of Greek and Latin, ὁμό- (homo, same) and sexualis (sexual). It would mean nothing to either a Roman or a Greek. According to dictionary.com it was first used in the 1890s.
For 'homophobia' genuinely to mean a fear of homosexual people in Greek, the word would have to be rather longer and more complicated, and would not trip off the tongue very easily. In fact, I do not believe the Ancient Greeks even had a word for homosexual, so you'd have to coin one. Since homophobia is a fairly modern construct (the way we see it; of course there have always been people against homosexual relations and sex) and the word homosexual itself is an English word that makes no sense in either Latin or Greek, I do not think it matters very much.
If someone did genuinely have a phobia of being the same, or doing the same, then they could technically refer to it as 'homophobia' but would be much more likely to use another word altogether, because homophobia certainly means fear of gay people now, even if technically it shouldn't.
Incidentally, both 'o's are short in the Greek word ὁμός and as a result it is more correct to pronounce the words hom - oss - secsual and hom - off - phobia. I hope you all do that. I dislike the word "hoe-moe", to some extent because it was a standard insult at my prep school, but more because it's a complete corruption of the original Greek root.
David
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P.S. Phobia should also technically be pronounced 'phobbia'. (If it were really phoe-bia the original Greek word would have an omega in it.) I don't do that, mostly because it sounds silly. Homo with short 'o's (omicrons) doesn't: in fact, it makes you sound more scientific, which can only be good when using a word like 'homosexual' as it's easy to sound perjorative when using it.
Homo as in homo sapiens is Latin, incidentally, and has nothing to do with the Greek homo as in homosexual or homophobia. In Latin it means 'man'; in Greek it means 'same' (no definite article, incidentally).
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Misunderstanding often arises because the Latin homo means man as opposed to beast whereas Latin vir means man as opposed to woman.
The dreadful spin off of this in English is that so many people do not understand that the word man has two distinct meanings. Hence the PC brigade out of ignorance will have a spokesperson at a meeting addressing the chairperson, or even worse the chair. (You might get more sense out of the chair.)
For years my mother was the chairman of her Townswomen's Guild and would have the position called nothing else.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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I'm 101% behind Nigel as regards the stupidity of interpreting the suffix '-man' as a sexual indicator, but what can we expect when actresses demand to be known as actors? Does that mean that Nicole Kidman considers herself eligible for the title role in the next re-make of Dracula? It would be amusing if it weren't so pathetic!
As regards the origin of 'homosexual', I accept Deeej's assessment to a point, but the prefix 'homo-', with the sense 'of the same kind' was firmly assimilated into English by the mid 17th Century. Thereafter, new coinings were wholly English, not Greek. In English, the second 'o' became an unstressed vowel in compound words, so that it acquired a pronunciation something like 'uh', rather than a short 'o' as in 'cot'. When the word 'homosexual' was coined in 1892, it was exclusively an adjective, often used in the pairing 'homosexual attraction', meaning - quite literally - attraction to the same sex. It took 20 years for the word to be used as a noun, following a long established English tradition of conversion. But I do agree that the first 'o' should be short; the long 'o' arises from an incorrect back-formation from the abbreviated form 'homo' - in which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, both 'o's are long in accepted pronunciation.
Turning to '-phobia', the suffix (and earlier noun) entered English from Latin rather than Greek. The 'o' in Latin was longer than the Greek omicron, but shorter than the Greek omega, but after assimilation into English it quickly lengthened. Oxford clearly indicates the correct pronunciation as 'FOE-be-a'. The earliest assimilation to English seems to have been in the form '-phobe' (pronounced 'FOBE'), derived (through French) from the Latin '-phobus' rather than the Greek '-phobos'.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... and overlooked Nigel's original post!
I haven't been able to establish the date of first use of the words 'homophobe' or 'homophobia', but I think that it is relatively recent - probably within the last fifty years. I'd guess that it's simply a contracted formation meaning 'homosexualphobia', probably strongly influenced by the common usage of the abbreviated form 'homo' at the time the words were coined.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Dare I mention it again? A portmanteau word.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... how can you pack your knickers and socks in a word? All too ethereal, I'd have thought!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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I can, cossie, if that word is suitcase.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... you win!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Whitop
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Toe is in the water |
Location: USA
Registered: June 2005
Messages: 73
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I've been wondering if there isn't a Greek word for antipathy or hatred so you could come up a suitcase word for whatever leads to gay bashing by people who don't necessarily fear them but just use them as the current Kigmy.
(Before you ask, In 1949 the cartoonist ("L'il Abner"), Al Capp, invented the Kigmy, a strange, dark, big-nosed creature that loved to be kicked. Naturally the Kigmy ("Kick-Me") was welcomed by humans, who loved nothing more than taking their daily frustrations out on a creature who loved being kicked. Capp later admitted that his inspiration for the Kigmy were the two groups in American society who he felt got "kicked around" the most: blacks and Jews.)
[Updated on: Sat, 07 October 2006 18:40] |
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'I hate' in Greek is 'μισεω' (miseo). Hence the common prefix mis-, as in 'misanthropist' (from μισ- and ᾿ανθροπος ).
You could probably form a word in that way. I'd suggest 'mishomist' (mis-homist) or 'misomist'. (You cannot have rough breathings, 'h's to English-speaking people, in the middle of a word in Greek, hence the omission of the 'h' in the second possibility.)
David
[Updated on: Sat, 07 October 2006 19:38] |
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That said, I ought to add I don't see anything wrong with "homophobe": I don't think that it is possible to hate something without fearing it to some degree. To hate a person -- hate is a very strong word -- you have to perceive him or her as a threat to your wellbeing, and at the very least you must fear the circumstances that would put you in contact with that person.
David
[Updated on: Sat, 07 October 2006 20:54] |
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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I agree with your linguistic logic, but there's an inescapable problem.
If you include an 'h' in the middle of the word, English-speakers without the benefit of a classical education would instinctively associate the 'h' with the first syllable rather that the second, so the normal pronunciation would become 'MISH-o-mist', but the repetition of 'mis-' makes the word an automatic tongue-twister: 'MISH-o-misht'. This distortion of 'homo-' would completely obscure the meaning of the word, but avoiding the problem by excluding the 'h' would obscure the meaning even more.
I think I've mentioned before that once a Greek or Latin prefix is accepted into common English usage, it becomes in every sense an 'English' prefix in coining later words. So as 'homophobe' has acquired common currency, it's perfectly permissible to use 'homo-' as a prefix meaning 'homosexual' rather than 'of the same kind'. I don't have much of a Greek vocabulary, never having studied the language; I learned the Greek alphabet as a mathematician, and what I know of pronunciation stems from my lifetime interest in the etymology of English words. To meet Mac's requirement, I'd suggest 'homo-' coupled with derivative from 'kicker', 'beater' or 'assailant'. Have you any suggestions on these lines?
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Whitop
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Toe is in the water |
Location: USA
Registered: June 2005
Messages: 73
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Right track! Just what I hasd in mind. Mac
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Cossie said,
>If you include an 'h' in the middle of the word, English-speakers without the benefit of a classical education would instinctively associate the 'h' with the first syllable rather that the second, so the normal pronunciation would become 'MISH-o-mist'
I do not think that MISHAP will necessarily occur. Many words have ambiguous pronunciations on paper, but, provided they do not MISHEAR the word 'mishomist' on first encountering it, people will soon learn the correct one and be able to say it without MISHANDLING it.
David
[Updated on: Sun, 08 October 2006 16:33] |
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Words are seldom, if ever, derived from text. Most words are coined through speech and later put onto paper. It is somewhat more common for words to enter English through text nowadays than perhaps a couple of centuries ago, but it is, nonetheless still not that common.
So if the word came into existance it would have a pronounciation associated with it before it had a spelling. As Deej said, it is possible that it could happen. Though it's unlikely to be coined through message board usage.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... you obviously don't move in wide enough circles!
The word 'mishap' is frequently mispronounced. The word 'mishear' is rarely used in colloquial conversation (a phrase such as 'Sorry, I thought you said ...' would be used in preference to 'I misheard you'). The word 'mishandling' is immune from mispronunciation (apart from the East Midland 'mis'andlin'!) because the part following the prefix is immediately recognisable as an unambiguous word in its own right.
Add to that the fact that 'mis-' is a widely used and widely understood prefix with a negative sense - 'badly' or 'wrongly'. 'Mis-' plus a recognisable word is readily identifiable as a construction of this kind. That's why mishap is mispronounced; although 'hap' is historically a word in its own right, meaning 'chance' or 'luck', it is archaic and no longer heard - so those unfamiliar with the word 'mishap' often don't realise that it is a 'mis-' word at all.
For the same reason, as neither '-homist' or '-omist' is a recognisable word, the 'mis-' trigger would not operate - and thus you would hear 'mish-o-mist' and, not infrequently, 'mish-o-misht'! 'Tis the way of the world to be perverse about such things!
So, as I've admitted my dodgy knowledge of Ancient Greek, can you come up with a compound on the lines suggested in my previous memo, just to make Mac happy? Pretty Please?
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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It's a more complex issue than it first appears, because there are several 'kinds' of language; I'll stick to English, but the principle applies to a greater or lesser degree in many other languages.
Let's consider three kinds, although other subdivisions are possible.
Universal English is the part of the language generally understood by most reasonably-educated users. It includes all the surviving words derived from Celtic, Romano-British, Anglo-Saxon and other Scandinavian influences and Norman French. It also includes all of the words added in and after the late medieval period, by 'borrowing' from other languages, predominantly Greek and Latin, often via French. A very significant proportion of this second group of words is of literary origin. Authors vied with each other to introduce clever new words; not all survived, but a very large number were widely adopted. There was a perception for much of this period that English was 'coarse' in comparison with Romance languages such as French, Spanish and Italian. For this reason, many of the words were coined as synonyms of existing English words but, over time, the meanings subtly diverged, leaving the language with the exceptionally rich and nuanced vocabulary it possesses today. For British English, US English is probably the major source of new 'universal' words today, but many such words still arrive in print; a fairly recent example was 'feisty'. I'm guessing, but I'd suggest that something between a quarter one-third and a third of 'universal' words were literary creations. By 'literary' I mean that they entered common use through writing rather than speech.
Technical English is the vocabulary used by specialists within their specialism. It's not new; a good early example is the technical vocabulary of the Church, for vestments, offices, architecture and many other aspects of religious life. Every trade had its own vocabulary for the tools and processes it used. Seamen had a particularly large vocabulary of specifically nautical words. Historically, it is likely that almost all such words were of oral origin, but by the time of the industrial revolution many new words were written coinages. Nowadays, almost all such words are coined in writing, and as most of the old technical vocabulary is now archaic, the vast majority of technical words in current use are 'literary' coinages. Obviously, many such words, such as 'television' pass into the universal vocabulary, though the majority, such as 'phenolphthalein', do not.
The third kind is Colloquial English. It uses the basic universal vocabulary but amends it by adding slang, dialect words and argot. Argot is the special vocabulary used by a closed group, such as the gay community, but some of those words leak out into wider usage. For example, 'Chav', widely used in the UK in the sense illustrated by Mike Arram's stories of the 'Chav Prince', is ultimately absorbed from the argot of English-speaking gypsies. I believe (though there's some doubt) that the disparaging description 'berk' derives from Cockney rhyming slang, via 'Berkshire Hunt'; I leave you to figure out the rhyme, but you get the principle. Colloquial English often adds new meanings to existing words, as with 'house' and 'garage' to describe musical genres. Obviously, most colloquial words are oral coinings, though a significant minority derives from newspapers and magazines.
Sorry, guys, this post is already ten times longer than I intended, but I just can't control myself when it comes to the history of English. I'll end by suggesting to Saben that, taking account of the above, oral coinings probably account for more than half our vocabulary - but not much more than half.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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"Kyle had his first encounter with our resident homodion," Jeff said.
"Homodion? What does that mean," Kevin asked.
"It's a word I sort of made up," Jeff said. "Homophobe means somebody who fears homosexuals, right? Well, the Latin word for 'hate' is odi. I just put that together with 'homo' and got homodion, somebody who hates homosexuals."
from 'Summer Fun 1" - part of the Foley-Mashburn Saga by Brew Maxwell - definitely one of my all-time fave top ten story sequences.
( http://www.themailcrew.com/pdfpage.html)
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Whitop
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Toe is in the water |
Location: USA
Registered: June 2005
Messages: 73
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Thanks, Nick; That’s an idea, although I would prefer homodian, which would give us also homodia, (or homoödian or homoödia - sounds OK but looks horrible in print.) or you could lengthen the shortening of homosexual and have homosodian – Oh, to hell with it. Love your neighbor!.
BTW, Thanks, Cossie, for your discourse on the origins of our (and your) English. I shall save it.
Mac
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I have to say I don't like 'homodian' very much because it's a mixture of both Latin (odi) and Greek (homo). Better to stick to one language, really.
I know that 'homosexual' already breaks this rule, but I'd rather not encourage it for brand new words...
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If I understand right, English is considered the World Trade Language. I also assume that is becasue it can borrow words from other languages and incorporate them. Some languages are immoveable. They do not lend themselves to inventing or borrowing new words, (such as French, but then who cares). english seems to get its power from being able to borrow and create new words. Its extremembly versitile.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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.... but if Deeej doesn't come up with something soon, I'm going to have no choice but to buy a classical Greek-English dictionary. And as a poor emigrant Scot, I can't afford it!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Whitop
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Toe is in the water |
Location: USA
Registered: June 2005
Messages: 73
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Searched the NY Times arachive tonight to see what William Safire, writer of the long running weekly column 'On Language' had to say:
'Phobia, which means ''fear of,'' was doing fine as a medical term until recently. ''Phobias are irrational fears,'' says Elaine Rodino, a psychologist in Santa Monica, Calif. ''They are not just 'sort of fears'; they are full and intense and uncontrollable.'' An anxiety psychologist in Chicago, David Carbonell, says that ''the clinical term phobia is not doing well. Often it's appended to another word to indicate a wide range of dislikes that may have nothing to do with the core meaning of avoidance as a response to powerful fear. I just fielded a request for an interview on 'nudophobia.'''
'These range from Islamophobe to Christophobe, both of which were used in the Oct. 23, 1997, edition of The Independent in London. They include Dean-o-phobe in a 2003 New Republic article, when Jonathan Chait confessed, ''It's not entirely clear to me why I've taken such an intense dislike to Howard Dean.''
'Today's negative connotation of the suffix -phobia (the ailment) or -phobe (the person) comes from the political-social accusation of homophobia. The original meaning, according to the O.E.D., is ''fear of men, or aversion towards the male sex.'' Chambers's Journal in 1920 wrote of a woman whose ''salient characteristic was a contempt for the male sex represented in the human biped. . . . The seeds of homophobia had been sown early.''
'Many doctors take umbrage at the general use of their suffix in words like Francophobe for ''one who calls French fries 'freedom fries'''; they don't like the way it dilutes the scientific seriousness of the term about an irrational fear. But professions don't own their words. Mathematicians also gripe about the theft of their beloved 'parameters', to no avail; common usage has a way of snatching a specific word or suffix to do more general semantic work.
'Let the listener or reader beware: -ist and -phobe, more often than not these days, are suffixes tacked on to words to turn them into fierce derogations. If this is alarmist, then I'm a lexiphobe.'
(Full article on request) and 'well said!' to Brian,
Mac
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Cossie wrote:
>And as a poor emigrant Scot, I can't afford it!<
That's because you are paying too much tax.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Deeej wrote:
> I have to say I don't like 'homodian' very much because it's a mixture of both Latin (odi) and Greek (homo).
I rather liked it for precisely that reason - it seems quintessentially English to borrow from other cultures without caring about the details !
We tend to adopt things because they strike us as pretty baubles, without giving a jot about the originals: especially noticeable in the field of cookery perhaps, where "quiche", "pizza" "tikka" are all English concepts having nothing to do with the original dishes ... a new word that's an inappropriate compound of Latin & Greek seems to me to symbolise this disregard for origins.
However, I converted in middle age from a "prescriptive" to a "descriptive" view of language ... so I may have a touch of the zeal of the convert about this kind of thing.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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