I am looking for a name for an idea that I have for a website. It is a niche hobby, but there is a greek word for it that most people don’t know. Lets say its a book club and the word was Bibliophile or a music club called Melophile.
Would you, if you did not know the meaning, think of it as something sexual, or maybe even something bad? I am nervous that users might relate it to pedophile even though that is just one of, (but maybe best known) philias there are
When I hear “audiophile”, I truly never think about licking the banana-plugs, so nope.
There are also some popular YT channels like Computerphile and Numberphile
to be frank, “Numberwang” is more titillating than “Numberphile”
That’s Numberwang!
Let’s rotate the board!
Cinephile is another common term.
Yeah another user mentioned those two too. The interesting part is that they have used a mixture of english and greek. For example Numberphile uses the enlish word “number” instead of the proper Arithmophile. I wonder if this is to make it easier to understand
The reason that a linguist would give is that -phile has become a somewhat productive suffix in English, so it is not constrained to Greek roots.
No, because I know what the suffix means.
But this is my question. The suffix means “to like” but this can be a good and a bad thing, depending on what the prefix is, like mentioned in the description. If you did not recognize the prefix would the average user assume the suffix to be sexual or negatively charged?
Well, I don’t think there is anything inherently sexual about the suffix, so no. But can’t speak for the average user.
Just remember that the average Lemmy user is a bit more literate than the average kneejerk reaction idiot. Id say theres nothing wrong with it but you can probably come up with something a little more catchy and clever if you put your mind to it.
I think you are right. I might go with a mixture of English and Greek like an other user mentioned (computerphile, numberphile, bookphile) even though they are not proper.
I honestly think Bibliophile is used commonly enough that most people would understand it. Not quite as much as Audiophile, but you do hear it. It also sounds, info, much better than Bookphile.
Phile is pretty much the best known greek suffix out there. It gets tagged onto most hobbies, so you don’t have to worry about it being defaulted to sexual matters. Tbh, most of the paraphilias are so obscure that nobody without an interest in the field is going to know them the way -phobias are. I mean, can you name the other chronophilias besides pedophilia? Did you even know that there were others? Most people really only know one or two sexual-philias at most, where they’ll have heard of a dozen or so non sexual ones.
But, just tacking phile or philia onto a word can be clunky, so you might end up with it not working well anyway.
Yeah I shared a link in an other comment about this. There seem to be quite a lot, and most of them end with “philia”. This is also my main concern. That most will have heard the suffix used with one of those
There is audiophile. It refers to someone who is obsessed about audio quality.
Theres also Audiophilic content too, and yet if you say you’re an audiophile no one mistakes it to mean you listen to audio porn. Context is going to be king with that suffix I wager.
It really depends. I think -phile tends to make me think non-sexual, and -philia makes me think sexual. Probably just because of how the words are used.
People tend to be willing to describe themselves as an x-phile, but psychological or legal literature are more likely to say something like “a person with x-philia” or “displaying traits of x-philia”.
I suspect the part with descriptions in literature is due to it being in a 3rd person. There seems to be a recent-ish trend though for people to refer to themselves in a ‘person who has X’ sense though to separate the person from the condition so maybe that changes.
Person First language. “A person with autism” means we use the word for the diagnosis, rather than the word for a diagnosed person (e.g., “autist”? Was that ever a real word?).
That’s the phrase I was looking for.
I’m pretty sure autist as a single word description was more a 4chan thing, but autistic person has been pretty common use.
Only dumb people will
That’s a large group though.
I assume the people who automatically think of something negative or sexual when hearing the word „phile“ are the same people you don’t want to associate with in the first place. Their opinion is worthless and can be ignored. Don’t waste your time with other people’s ignorance.
I’d agree with you, but if it is for the purpose of educating people, I wouldn’t want to scare them away because they would feel its a risky click when linked to…
Yeah, I feel you. Maybe there is a case to be made here. But I think those who are ignorant choose to be so and it’s a lost cause. You probably shouldn’t listen to me. I think it’s great of you to consider something like this.
I’d simply guess “lover, liker, fond of”, without any obligatory sexual connotation. Even if I don’t recognise the first part, as in… say, “wugphile” (“wug” is just a nonsense placeholder).
If you created a page called “Wugphile” I would totally think it was about linguistics :D
Well, considering the type of website that I’d create, that would be spot on. Perhaps with some sort of visual pun between “wugphile” and “wug file”, and abstract art for Chomsky’s “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”.
I have some interest in chemistry and after a while when I hear “phile” my first thought is “they are attracted to water”.
Hydrophilic!
A nucleophile happens by and notices your electrophile. Your electrophile is attracted to their greater electron density and ditches you, the leaving group, for them. Was this SN1 or SN2?
So… you are a chemophile!! See what I mean? It kind of sounds negative without it being the case.
i like water
Not necessarily, it depends on whether I recognize the first part of the word. For example, I dont immediately think “audiophile,” is negative or sexual in nature.
I don’t know if this is international but it’s a common joke in British media to use this as a bit of a joke, for example a geeky character might say that they’re a bibliophile, and the dumb character will make it sexual.
Random dude I was talking to mentioned he was a “heliophile” mid-conversation about weather. Dude thought he was so smart, cuz apparently no one ever knows what he means when he uses that term. He joked about people sort of recoiling at the sound of the word.
Anyway, I’d heard of helio and phile…. So he likes the sun. Uh, cool.
What a weird guy
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Definitely the vibe I got from this guy using the term heliophile and then after he asked if I knew what it was…. Explained it anyway, and how people always recoil at the use of the word.
I was just thinking, maybe they’re recoiling from your personality bro.
Nah it’s okay. Anglophile doesn’t mean you want to bang me.
Unless…?
There’s only two words with the ‘phile’ ending that is sexual that I can think of. But audiophile, videophile, and a host of others use that ending in the context of a preference or attraction: nemophile has nothing to do with animated fish, for instance. Hemophilia is another example of a commonplace word that is definitely not sexual.
I want to think the average person knows there’s no sex in halophilia, but we could be overestimating.
You may be right, but it is interesting that most sexual interests have a “-philia” name although they are described as paraphilias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paraphilias