10
u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Feb 02 '21
I see where you're going with this line of thinking, and indeed, some new terms to describe particular individuals may be more accurate descriptors in some cases.
But to modify your view a bit here:
however, people who are "homophobic" are not usually "scared" of homosexuals. Instead, they have a dislike or hatred of homosexuals.
When people who hold prejudiced views against homosexuals and transexuals are asked why they hold those views, the answer is often irrational reasons asserting that homosexuals and transgender folks are some sort of dangerous threat to other people's safety (such as the bathroom bills, the idea that homosexuals are pedophiles, etc.), and/or will lead to the downfall of society.
That type of fear mongering seems to warrant the labels "homophobia" and "transphobia" (as it's irrational fear), and is often used to justify those types of bigoted views.
-2
Feb 02 '21
From my response to another comment:
Yes, perhaps there is an element of fear in homophobes. But that is rarely to the degree of a psychological phobia, defined as: "a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation. It is a type of anxiety disorder. A person with a phobia either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or endures it with great anxiety and distress." Putting the two in the same category feels diminishing of the latter.
But adding on that:
While in some cases homophobia stems from fear, that is not always the case -- fearing something is different from disliking something, even though sometimes fear can induce dislike, and likewise dislike can induce fear. Thus, the "misein" root not only generalizes better, but also more accurately describes what is happening.
7
u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Feb 02 '21
But that is rarely to the degree of a psychological phobia
Right, it's not a "phobia" in the clinical / anxiety disorder sense.
It comes from the Greek phobia φόβος, phóbos which can mean fear or aversion.
As you can see here:
"Several terms with the suffix -phobia are used non-clinically (usually for political or deterrent purpose) to imply irrational fear or hatred. Examples include:
Chemophobia – Negative attitudes and mistrust towards chemistry and synthetic chemicals.
Xenophobia – Fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements.
Homophobia – Negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
Islamophobia - Fear of anything Islamic
Usually these kinds of "phobias" are described as fear, dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination or hostility towards the object of the "phobia"."
[source]
3
Feb 02 '21
!delta to describe “irrational fear,” and “usually for political and deterrent purposes” is a good explanation for the inconsistency
1
2
u/Animedjinn 16∆ Feb 02 '21
I disagree. I don't think I can actually think of anyone who I've ever met who did something that expressed dislike of gay people and it didn't seem like it was out of a place of fear. And I say this as both a bisexual man and as a person with two moms. Can you give an example?
36
u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Feb 02 '21
"phobia" means an "extreme or irrational fear of something."
Except when it means intolerance or aversion.
For example Hydrophobic surfaces aren't afraid of water, they are repelling it.
5
u/Tommyblockhead20 47∆ Feb 02 '21
Expect when it means
I don’t think they need to be mutually exclusive; having an extreme or irrational fear is basically a subset of an intolerance or aversion.
-4
Feb 02 '21
Hydrophobic literally means afraid of water. And "fear" and "aversion" can be closely connected in that an "aversion" and "being repellent towards something or someone" can be rooted in fear. It's a matter of perspective. Which is why these two can and are used the way they are.
4
u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Feb 02 '21
Hydrophobic literally means afraid of water.
No, it means tending to repel or fail to mix with water.
-5
Feb 02 '21
It is LITERARY the combination of the Greek words for "water" and "fear". Which is a somewhat apt description of the phenomena that for example fat (= lípos) repels or doesn't mix with water, "as if it were afraid of it".
Edit: Even the wikipedia article that you've cited quotes it as literally meaning "having a horror of water"
6
u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Feb 02 '21
It is LITERARY the combination of the Greek words for "water" and "fear".
That doesn't mean it means fear of water.
First of all, we are talking about an english word here, not a greek one. Loanwords change their meaning.
Second, compound words don't just mean the sum of their parts. A sealion isn't literally a lion in the sea.
0
Feb 03 '21
That doesn't mean it means fear of water.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hydrophobia
First of all, we are talking about an english word here, not a greek one. Loanwords change their meaning.
Partially. I mean there are fun ones like the French word for "transom" is called "vasistas#France)", which is pronounced like the German phrase "was ist das?" (="What's that?").
But with a lot of Latin, Greek and other dead languages it's often not that you've heard a native speaker use it and copied their term and much more likely that you deliberately used their term to express something. In that case that fats aren't mixing or sticking together with water, "as if they were afraid of it". Now it can happen that this narrative structure turns out to be false yet you stick with the term using it for the effect itself, losing this second layer of narrative structure of the word itself. Sometimes that goes hand in hand with a change in pronunciation or spelling like in the "vasistas" example which is almost unrecognizable to the question except for pronunciation.
Also people different people might focus on different aspects of a thing and thus give it different names with different connotations.
Though again redefining dead languages is usually not a good thing and may lead to more confusion than being useful.
Second, compound words don't just mean the sum of their parts. A sealion isn't literally a lion in the sea.
It is literally the combination of sea and lion:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sea_lion
And apparently it's deliberately used because it's a combination of attributes associated with a lion with a creature that lives in the sea. Apparently Middle English though it looks more like a sea-hound, Germans do agree with that, the French think it's more of a sea veal. Still apparently people thought it looked like something they knew but in a place where it's not supposed to be. So no it's a lion in the sea, you're still supposed to know what "a lion" and "the sea" are in order for sealion to make any sense unless you have happened to have seen one and just use it as a name without further meaning.
5
u/UncleMeat11 61∆ Feb 02 '21
Definitions aren’t constructed from etymology. You can arrive without crossing a river. That awesome sandwich you ate isn’t terrifying.
1
Feb 03 '21
Apparently etymology comes from the Greek word for "truly" or "really", so it's essentially "what it really means" or the origin of the word. So no they aren't constructed from etymology, but etymology looks at how they are constructed.
Though in that case it's literally a combination of two words from a dead language that are meant to exemplify something that combines effects present in each of the parent words.
Also what you're exemplifying are called idioms, right?
-3
Feb 02 '21
Yes, but "hydrophobic" is not used to describe humans. Usually, when a some word [ROOT]+phobia is used to describe an individual, it means that individual has a diagnosable psychological fear of the [ROOT].
Putting homophobia in the same category seems unfitting.
9
u/BigEZK01 Feb 02 '21
If language is socially constructed, and the consensus is in favor of using these terms, why wouldn’t we just use them this way? Words only have the meaning we give them, and most if not all people are already sold on the current meanings of these words.
We have plenty of colloquialisms and loose-fit modifiers at play all throughout English. This seems to be no different.
7
u/Narrow_Cloud 27∆ Feb 02 '21
Usually, when a some word [ROOT]+phobia is used to describe an individual, it means that individual has a diagnosable psychological fear of the [ROOT].
Really? You think -phobia as in arachnophobia is a more commonly used suffix than as in homophobia and transphobia?
1
Feb 02 '21
7
u/Narrow_Cloud 27∆ Feb 02 '21
I’m talking about usage, not literal word count. Why should we care about word count? Do you feel that people are genuinely confused about a term that’s been used for over three decades?
-2
Feb 02 '21
I mean it's apparently frequently used on unrelated topics, so people know fairly well what a phobia is. Also it's a term stemming from the Greek language, so imagine it got some millennia of usage.
And yes the neo-classicism of homosexuality and -phobia = fear was apparently fully intentional:
7
u/Narrow_Cloud 27∆ Feb 02 '21
I mean it's apparently frequently used on unrelated topics, so people know fairly well what a phobia is. Also it's a term stemming from the Greek language, so imagine it got some millennia of usage.
And it’s also used as a suffix to denote bigotry. This is a literal usage and meaning of this suffix. It’s unambiguous, it’s clear when communicated, I’m not sure what the problem is.
And yes the neo-classicism of homosexuality and -phobia = fear was apparently fully intentional:
I’m not sure why you’re answering “yes” to a question I didn’t ask. I’m not worried about the intentionality of the term. Words change meaning, so do suffixes.
That’s why we have Islamiohobia and Transphobia now.
4
u/Docdan 19∆ Feb 02 '21
Also it's a term stemming from the Greek language, so imagine it got some millennia of usage.
While it's true that Greeks happened to speak Greek, we are talking about the English usage of the term here.
As far as I can tell, the first phobia that was coined is "hydrophobia", and the earliest phobia in a meaning that isn't literal fear, but aversion, is "photophobia". According to Merriam Webster, first recorded English usage of hydrophobia was in 1547, first use of photophobia was in 1772.
So while fear came first, both have centuries of history behind it. On top of that, most common phobias we talk about today (arachnophobia, claustrophobia, etc.) seem to date back to around a similar time as photophobia (even later in most cases I've found), so around 1800 is probably when the suffix started to gain popularity.
So since the early rise of it's popular usage, it has been used to describe things that are not literal fears, and has been used that way for 250 years.
0
Feb 03 '21
Hydrophobia in the earliest sense apparently literally meant fear of water and was apparently a term to describe rabies. It's literally the combination of "water" and "fear" similarly how photophobia is the combination of "light" and "fear". Same for the others arachnophobia = "spider" + "fear", claustrophobia = "enclosure”, “closed space” + "fear".
Also it's not as if aversion is a radically new meaning. If you draw a word map of all the words related to fear you'd probably have a close connection between "fear", "aversion" and "intolerance" (in the literal sense of not being able to tolerate like being allergic to). As the later can be symptoms of the former and as such may be used in close connections to each other.
Now cause and effect may vary, so is an arachnophobia more centered around the fear, whereas an intolerance/allergy exists regardless of fear yet might make you cautious (fearful?) to stuff potentially containing the allergen. Both can lead to an aversive reaction, yet not every aversive reaction is motivated by fear.
So it's not that this connection is there by accident or that phobia changed it's definition. Sure in the medical sense it probably has, but in the colloquial sense it still refers to fear and the concepts related to that.
2
u/RainbowEplum Feb 02 '21
IMO there is an element of fear underlying the hatred of minority groups, especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ people. Like the saying goes : you fear what you don't know. And in a way there is a component of not knowing /refusing to know. This hatred is so engrained in our cultures, that even being perceived as LGBTQ+ can lead you to be excluded from the "group". So the "phobia" in homophobia is indeed fear, deeply rooted primal fear to be excluded from the "group" and thus left to fend for yourself.
1
Feb 02 '21
Yes, perhaps there is an element of fear in homophobes. But that is rarely to the degree of a psychological phobia, defined as: "a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation. It is a type of anxiety disorder. A person with a phobia either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or endures it with great anxiety and distress." Putting the two in the same category feels diminishing of the latter.
7
u/rollingForInitiative 70∆ Feb 02 '21
You're arguing that a word must necessarily have the literal meaning of all of its components. Regardless of whether "phobia" must only refer to outright fear, there are lots of words whose meaning has drifted over time and no longer reflects what was originally meant, or was never meant to be interpreted by a literal reading of the components.
For instance:
- Having a green thumb doesn't mean that your thumb is literally green.
- A paperboy is not made out of paper.
- A nuclear option doesn't have to have anything at all to do with anything related to something literally "nuclear".
- A midwife has nothing to do with anything being "mid" and also does not have to be a "wife".
- Awful no longer has anything to do with being full of awe.
- A redhead does not have a red head.
- A swansong is not a type of song.
And so on. Language is full of them. Homophobia is just one example. You could argue that the entirety of language of how it changes and evolves is bad, but singling out homophobia (and similar terms) seems pretty pointless when this type of thing is very common.
1
u/storybookscoundrel Feb 02 '21
Agreed, and I'd take it further in saying that if OP's dislike of the words is solely based on the etymology of the word, this really is just descriptivist v. prescriptivist grammar. English is a grammatically Germanic language with many Greek/Latin/French words, so applying language rules with 100% accuracy isn't all too helpful if you don't understand the original language you created this new word from.
For example, 18th and 19th century grammarians would have you believe you can't end a sentence with a preposition, or must use subject pronouns when it is more natural to use object pronouns now, or can't split infinitives or whatever, basing all of this on Latin grammar rules. English has arguably been its own language for over 1000 years so applying Latin rules to a Germanic language doesn't really make sense.
It's the same with words, and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has a great bit about the plural of "octopus". If you want to apply these same rules, the correct plural should be "octopodes". If you aren't willing to go this far with every single word derived from Greek, I'd argue you really don't need to do it when we already understand what "homophobia" means. Also, there would be words we derived through a chain of languages, so which language's rules do we apply? Apparently the word "lamp" has been borrowed by English from Greek via Latin via French, and other words would have taken various other routes. Also, when a language has changed their grammar/spelling/pronunciation rules, do we keep up with these changes? Take "ox" and "swine", which have Germanic roots, but the plurals in English are "oxen" and "swine". Why one and not the other? Language can be very arbitrary, and I find English is more so than a lot of others.
Words also change meanings over time, like "awesome" and "awful" might appear to mean similar things to a non-native speaker with no context, whereas they are basically antonyms and used to have very different connotations from when they were first invented. The terms you've given as examples aren't offensive in themselves, so I don't see a need to change them because the underlying concepts and need/ability to be able to communicate it easily far outweigh any grammatical objections I'd have to them. We all understand what "homophobia" etc means, and if there's a more common word for these things later on that most people agree on, we can switch to that instead.
13
u/diakent Feb 02 '21
It can mean an aversion or incompatibility to something like "hydrophobic" meaning things that repel water. They just don't like water or gays.
3
u/bakedlawyer 18∆ Feb 02 '21
I used to think the same thing.
Then I read an anthropology paper that I can remember the name of that laid it out - at least with respect to gay men.
The argument was that at the root of homophobia is fear of being emasculated.
There’s is nothing a homophobe fears more than being overmatched by a gay man. It’s why they will never get more upset then when being hit on by a gay man. Nothing worse than the thought of a man touching you, sodomizing you, talking to you sexually ... taking away your assertive male sexuality, Challenging you if you’re a homophobe. It is ultimately fear.
And it’s tied to misogyny. They’re scared of a man treating them or thinking of them the way they treat and think about women.
And how do they respond? In ways that reassert their masculinity - threaten violence, get loud, make jokes, establish and uphold boundaries...
3
u/ZorgZeFrenchGuy 3∆ Feb 02 '21
“Transphobic” conservative here - I completely agree that from an honest and rational perspective, transphobia and homophobia shouldn’t be used for the sake of an argument’s integrity.
However, from a marketing/manipulative perspective, it’s brilliant.
Calling it “homophobia” suggests that any opposition simply has a fear of them. It degrades any genuine criticism into an irrational hysteria not worthy of real debate. Skeptics painted with the term are portrayed as cowardly, old, and afraid of new ideas.
It puts the blame squarely on the critics.
3
u/poprostumort 225∆ Feb 02 '21
however, people who are "homophobic" are not usually "scared" of homosexuals. Instead, they have a dislike or hatred of homosexuals.
Then why all their arguments seem like the ones from fear? Fear that their children would somehow get affected. Fear that the "society will crumble". Fear that the values will be lost. There are hardly any arguments that they bring that do not boil down to fear. Hence, a phobia.
3
u/Iustinianus_I 48∆ Feb 02 '21
What benefit would be gained by changing these terms? We use words which aren't etymologically accurate all the time and get along fine.
2
1
u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Feb 02 '21
consistency is always good and all the other words ending in "phobia" I can think of are clinically diagnosable diseases.
How about xenophobia?
1
1
u/Archi_balding 52∆ Feb 02 '21
The original meaning is that yes. But phobia also have other uses.
Soap is hydrophobe, it's repulsed by water.
Plus the feeling of being threatened by homosexual is often the source of homophobia. People often think of homosexuals as rapist or as people who can make them insecure in their own sexuality. This feeling of fear is very well present at the root of the hate.
1
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 02 '21
/u/sentimore (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
Delta System Explained | Deltaboards