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Discussion Groups / English Usage / August 2008Misandry
Carl Sagan, in _Contact_, says "Misanthrope" is someone who dislikes everybody, not just men. And they certainly had a word for someone who hates women: "misogynist." But the male lexicographers had somehow neglected to coin a word for the dislike of men. They were almost certainly men themselves, she thought, and had been unable to imagine a market for such a word. I wonder if Sagan did not know of the word "misandry" or only wanted to portray his protagonist as not knowing? Anyway, lexicographers don't normally coin words; they report them.  SignatureBob Cunningham, aka Sparky, aka Woody Wordpecker, Greater Los Angeles, California, USofA Western American English http://www.alt-usage-english.org/AUE_gallery/sparky.html > Carl Sagan, in _Contact_, says > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Greater Los Angeles, California, USofA > Western American Englishhttp://www.alt-usage-english.org/AUE_gallery/sparky.html Dord? >> Carl Sagan, in _Contact_, says >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > >Dord? Should that be called a coinage? As you no doubt know, it was a ludicrous misapprehension of alternative abbreviations for "depth" ("D or d, depth"), made even more ludicrous by the fact that a number of competitors' dictionaries unwittingly copied it. Isn't calling that mistake a coinage akin to calling a simple typo a coinage? To me, "coinage" implies the deliberate creation of a new word, like "aerospacical" to broaden "aeronautical", by way of "aerospace", to include both air travel and space travel. ("Aerospacical" gets no hits in either vanilla Google or Google Groups except for its recent use in this forum.) SignatureBob Cunningham, aka Sparky, aka Woody Wordpecker, Greater Los Angeles, California, USofA Western American English http://www.alt-usage-english.org/AUE_gallery/sparky.html >Carl Sagan, in _Contact_, says > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > >Anyway, lexicographers don't normally coin words; they report them. I haven't read the book, but Sagan appears to be showing the thought processes of a fictional character. In that case, he can make her as ignorant as anyone else in the general population without reflecting badly on himself. Actually, it's fairly difficult to create a sympathetic character who thinks very differently from oneself, so if that's what Sagan is doing here, it reflects very well on his abilities as a writer of fiction. >>Carl Sagan, in _Contact_, says >> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >ignorant as anyone else in the general population without reflecting >badly on himself. I see now that I might have mentioned that the fictional character is a highly intelligent female scientist who seems to have a broad range of cultural interests and is the head of a large radio-astronomy project. >Actually, it's fairly difficult to create a sympathetic character who >thinks very differently from oneself, so if that's what Sagan is doing >here, it reflects very well on his abilities as a writer of fiction. I suspect that Sagan intended the female scientist to be, if anything, smarter than he was. That sounds even harder. Incidentally, I find "del perros" interesting in that, from what I've learned of Spanish, it seems to be grammatically erroneous. Shouldn't it be "de los perros" or "del perro"? See, for example, http://ramaaventurera.blogspot.com/2007/07/la-reina-de-los-perros.html SignatureBob Cunningham, aka Sparky, aka Woody Wordpecker, Greater Los Angeles, California, USofA Western American English >>I haven't read the book, but Sagan appears to be showing the thought >>processes of a fictional character. In that case, he can make her as [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >of cultural interests and is the head of a large radio-astronomy >project. Ah. That does make a difference. Wouldn't want to make her as ignorant as anyone else in the general population. Hmm. >>Actually, it's fairly difficult to create a sympathetic character who >>thinks very differently from oneself, so if that's what Sagan is doing >>here, it reflects very well on his abilities as a writer of fiction. > >I suspect that Sagan intended the female scientist to be, if anything, >smarter than he was. That sounds even harder. Definitely. Oh, well. If there weren't so many scientific/technical folks among this newsgroups regular participants, I might try to excuse Sagan with the "She was too busy studying science to pay attention to words" ploy. That might go unchallenged somewhere, but not, I suspect, here. Looks like he's still on the hook. >Incidentally, I find "del perros" interesting in that, from what I've >learned of Spanish, it seems to be grammatically erroneous. Shouldn't >it be "de los perros" or "del perro"? > >See, for example, >http://ramaaventurera.blogspot.com/2007/07/la-reina-de-los-perros.html But, but that's a picture of an actual perro! I think I might need to change my name to something else entirely. Too many people have challenged the "grammar" of my current name. Of course, names don't have grammar; sentences have grammar. And in our society, names are so far removed from any original meanings the component parts may have had that we;ll laugh at a name that seems to suggest a meaning other than simply "This Person." That's what I figured, anyway. Do you think if I'd resisted the temptation to intercapitalize "Lareina" (which is a legitimate given name), people would be less likely to gripe about the grammar of the surname? No matter. I'm changing it. [...] >I think I might need to change my name to something else entirely. Too >many people have challenged the "grammar" of my current name. Of >course, names don't have grammar; sentences have grammar. It seems to me phrases have grammar as well as sentences, and a part of a name that is patently a phrase should be grammatically acceptable. But "grammar", like most English words, has a variety of meanings, and even linguists seem unwilling to agree on a definition. See, for example, the discussion of grammar in David Crystal's _Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_ on page 88, where a distinction is made between a specific sense and a general sense. For the specific sense, under "language structure" there are three subcategories, phonology, grammar, and semantics. For the general sense, phonology, syntax, and semantics are subcategories under "grammar". For Joe Sixpack, that is ungrammatical that doesn't seem like "good English" for any reason whatever. Jose Paquete de Seis might say something similar about Español bueno. SignatureBob Cunningham, aka Sparky, aka Woody Wordpecker, Greater Los Angeles, California, USofA Western American English [...] > I think I might need to change my name to something else entirely. > Too many people have challenged the "grammar" of my current name. [...] > I'm changing it. ¡Muchísimas gracias, señora! You have no idea how much I hated that ungrammatical-sounding "del Perros." But do let us know, when you start using a Real Good name, that you are the former "del Perros" (ptui!). Speaking of which, I also detest immensely the nonsensical and ugly name (not the person) "TsuiDF." ~~~ Reinhold [Rey] Aman ~~~ El Rey de los gatos > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Speaking of which, I also detest immensely the nonsensical and ugly > name (not the person) "TsuiDF." I always knew there was a worthwhile reason behind the de-grammarfied "LaReina del Perros", and was pleased to leave it alone for its intrinsic relationship with itself. SignatureFrank ess «El Mero Chingón» (according to some) >[...] > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >¡Muchísimas gracias, señora! You have no idea how much I hated that >ungrammatical-sounding "del Perros." I do appreciate your forbearance. >But do let us know, when you start using a Real Good name, that you are >the former "del Perros" (ptui!). Consider this your notification. The name I'm using now would have been the name of my dead great-aunt on my mother's father's side, had her grandfather (my great-great-grandfather) not Anglicized the family name upon his arrival in the United States from Württemberg, back in the mid-19th century. So it ought to qualify as a Real Good name by anybody's standards. It just doesn't happen to be *my* Real Good name. > > [...] > > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > > > > I'm changing it. > > ¡Muchísimas gracias, señora! You have no idea how much I hated > > that ungrammatical-sounding "del Perros." > I do appreciate your forbearance. De nada, zorrita. > > But do let us know, when you start using a Real Good name, that you > > are the former "del Perros" (ptui!). > Consider this your notification. The name I'm using now would have > been the name of my dead great-aunt on my mother's father's side, had [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > It just doesn't happen to be *my* Real Good name. You are one foxy lady, Señora Zorra. ~~~ Reinhold [Rey] Aman ~~~ |
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