PSA - "Misogynistic" isn't a word

[schlaufuchs]

Or if it is, so are "racistic" and "sexistic". Misogynist is a noun and an adjective people.

and conmigo is 3 words.

Reduplication is a thing, yo.

 

[Bill3000]

I hope you didn't pay to be a supporter just to troll If so, well, it is its own punishment, really. Your point regarding defining what a term means through semantics and not etymology is not even a platitude.

But semantics is the branch of linguistics concerned with meaning...

 

[Gori the Grey]

Semantistics, I think you mean.

 

[Borachio]

Ooh, can we add -istics to all sorts of wordistics, nowistics?

 

[schlaufuchs]

Ooh, can we add -istics to all sorts of wordistics, nowistics?

It's rather the enticing heuristic

 

[onejayhawk]

Hmm, I was under the impression that dictionaries were merely descriptive and not prescriptive I suppose it depends on which side of the argument you take. I remain "nonplussed".

Some one once told Tolkien that he was miswriting "dwarves", citing the Oxford English Dictionary. Tolkien replied that he wrote the OED.

J

 

[Hygro]

Owen Poppins coasting in on his umbrella about to sing us a song.

 

[El_Machinae]

Estimated Number Of Words In The English Lexicon

Misogynistic is fine, in context. It just needs to be cromulent.

 

[Borachio]

So the English lexicon is getting embiggened even as we speak, or because we speak?

 

[Bill3000]

So the English lexicon is getting embiggened even as we speak, or because we speak?

yes

 

[warpus]

Maybe we should stop speaking

 

[schlaufuchs]

Maybe we should stop speaking

Well, enlarged even as it shrinks. The amount of words that exist in the English language has "enlarged" in that all words are now preserved forever in dictionaries, but the actual inventory of words any given native speaker has at hand for their language has invariably been roughly the same.

Even as some words are changed in meaning or created wholesale, other words likewise fall out of favor.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I have no idea why "gainsay" has dropped out of the language. It hasn't been replaced by anything, and it designates an activity you often need to name.

 

[onejayhawk]

I can gainsay your assertion, but choose to rebut it.

J

 

[Mise]

I have no idea why "gainsay" has dropped out of the language. It hasn't been replaced by anything, and it designates an activity you often need to name.

Had to look it up, but it seems like there's a lot of words that mean roughly the same thing? E.g. oppose, contradict, deny, challenge, dispute, contest. I have never seen this word in writing or heard it in use, so I have no idea if the connotations are remotely the same.

Re the thread, it's always fun watching a pedant get owned on the first page. Brilliant and hilarious

 

[Borachio]

I have no idea why "gainsay" has dropped out of the language. It hasn't been replaced by anything, and it designates an activity you often need to name.

Nice one. I too would as lief have gainsay remain in current usage. I rather like it. And as far as I know, it's just a contraction of "against" and "say".

 

[Mise]

Nice one. I too would as lief have gainsay remain in current usage. I rather like it. And as far as I know, it's just a contraction of "against" and "say".

A literal translation of "contra-dict"?

 

[Borachio]

That's spot on, imo. They've just got different origins.

 

[El_Machinae]

have never seen this word in writing or heard it in use, so I have no idea if the connotations are remotely the same.

It can be used imperiously by villains in a position of power!

Spoiler YOU DARE GAINSAY ME!?! :

 

[Borachio]

It is subtly different from contradict, though. More like forbid, I think. But maybe not quite that, either.

Mr Grey will know. You mark my words.