GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: JT on March 26, 2006, 07:57:38 PM
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Maybe antonym isn't the right descriptor. I'm wondering why the word 'misogynist' ('miso' meaning hate and 'gynist' meaning women (roughly)), is so commonplace but there isn't, to my knowledge, a word that means woman who hates men.
If you want to get technical (which I know you do), then philogynist could be an antonym of misogynist, but it's not the word I'm looking for. Misanthrope is close, except it means someone who hates all of mankind. Misandrist is the word I'm looking for, I think, except I'm not sure it's correct and I've never seen it in my life until googling for it tonight.
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I've never seen the word misandrist used except in discussions like this one.
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You could always try looking it up (http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/misandrist). :P Looks like a perfectly cromulent word to me. I don't know why it's not very common, though; I guess we still live in a fundamentally sexist society.
Also, I believe that both misandrist and philogynist would be antonyms of misogynist. A true antonym is the same in all ways but the opposite in one key way.
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This brings up a very important question -- is there such a thing as a female android?
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Data had a daughter in one episode, and they called her an android. Actually, there was also an android version of his mother, too.
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I wrote a poem about sexy lady robots once.
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But not sexy lady androids.
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That link to M-W requires I pay money or register for a free 3 week trial, neither of which I want to do. I tried looking it up, but I couldn't find a reliable source.
Another question: How do you pronounce it? Is it missendrist or misANdrist?
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I know that Data called her an android.
But was he wrong to do so?
I mean, the guy can't even say can't, so I'm not going to trust him on matters of language.
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Are you familiar with Moliere's The Misanthrope?
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What's the antonym of 'misogynist'?, And why haven't I ever heard it before?
What's wrong with man-hater?
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Nothing, really, except it doesn't follow the etymology of misogynist.
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pooka, I've read some Moliere, but not The Misanthrope. Why?
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That link to M-W requires I pay money or register for a free 3 week trial, neither of which I want to do. I tried looking it up, but I couldn't find a reliable source.
Another question: How do you pronounce it? Is it missendrist or misANdrist?
Oops. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has a subscription to an online dictionary. >.<
Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=misandrist) is good, though not quite as good as Merriam-Webster's. Primary stress should be on mis, and secondary stress should be on an.
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Misanthrope means averse to men. But it is generally used in the wider mankind sense.
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Not according to the sources I've seen. Anthropos is from the Greek anthrôpos meaning literally "man" but more accurately translated as "mankind".
From www.etymology.com (http://www.etymology.com).
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Nothing, really, except it doesn't follow the etymology of misogynist.
Also, it's perfectly understandable by any English speaker. Perhaps that's a negative in some situations?
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The word man-hater has connotations and/or associations that one might want to avoid.
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What connotations/associations are present with that word that aren't there because of the definition of the word?
It doesn't seem to me that it has negative connotations -- it has a negative meaning.
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Man-hater is generally used to describe a certain kind of woman and then only in a pejorative sense. On the other hand, the word misogynist is often used in a more academic sense--usually as an adjective instead of a noun--that doesn't necessarily imply a man, nor is it necessarily pejorative insofar as it is not always directed at a particular person. Man-hater also carries with it a greater sense of irrationality or wrong-headedness than misogynist, probably largely because it's so colloquial-sounding. It's almost never used in a detached, academic context, but nearly always as an epithet.
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To me, mysogny is as ugly a thing as man-hating.
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I think that "man-hater" has somewhat bitchier connotations, if only because "misogynist" is Greek and therefore sounds a little more elevated.
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Yes, that's what I mean. Misogyny and "man-hating" are equally bad phenomena, but the two words don't carry the same emotional weight. The latter is akin to saying "feminazi" or "dyke." The former is not. I recognize, Porter, that this may not be true for you but I think it's likely that you are the exception.
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I think hating men is as bad as hating women. Though one is less likely to get you behind in the scheme of things as the other.
And as far as the difference between misanthrope and misandry... uh... it's kind of like the difference between saying croissant and crescent rolls. [wanders off topic] If you are not equipped to say croissant with a perfect French accent, I don't know that it's such a sin to say crescent rolls instead.
But I'm with porter that misogyny is no less ugly than man-hating. Or put another way, misogyny is just a fancy way of saying woman-hating.
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It's not at all uncommon to have two words in the English language denote the same thing but have different connotations.
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I disagree with what Pooka said about the difference between misanthrope and misandry. Despite their etymological similarities, they mean distinct things. Mistanthropy means hating people, while misandry means hating men, or male people.
I also disagree with Mike that misogyn and woman-hating have different connotations.
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I guess if I call you pointlessly uptight, Jon Boy will call me one of those people whose laxness is leading to the decay of civilization as we know it. :P You refers to everyone who hasn't pledged their allegiance to me.
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So who exactly has pledged allegiance to you?
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noone. :rolleyes:
I swear the codeine has to have worn off. Though I'm probably in withdrawal.
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I also disagree with Mike that misogyn and woman-hating have different connotations.
I didn't say that misogyny and woman-hating had different connotations. I said that man-hating has connotations that misogyny doesn't. Man-hater usually has a much greater emotional weight carried with it than woman-hater does. In fact, the only times I've ever heard woman-hater used it was quite tongue-in-cheek--an episode of The Three Stooges, for example.
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Are you saying that there are different connotations between woman-hating and man-hating?
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Not so much between the phenomena as between the phrases.
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Well, we're back to me disagreeing with you.
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Are you disagreeing with me that they have different connotations to you, to me, to the people you've heard say them, to the people I've heard say them, or to everyone?
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I have not observed any difference in connotation between man-hating and woman-hating except for sexist attitudes that might make hating men or women more or less acceptable for some people.
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It sounds like you're talking about the phenomena there and not the phrases. And either way, in my experience, attitude forms a large portion of connotation.
In any case, I have observed differences in connotation between the phrases woman-hater, misogynist, and man-hater, which is why I said that I didn't think that man-hater was completely equivalent to misandrist. At least, not for the purposes of communication.
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I have not observed such differences. So much so that they map to the exact same thing in my brain. Afterward, I can't tell you if the word woman-hater or misogynist was used.
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I submit that you may be in the minority in that. I also recognize that I may be in the minority.
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I understand. I haven't been meaning to say "I'm right and you're wrong," but "My experiences to not agree with what you are saying".
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Is misopedist a word? I know I will adore these people when they are not so short and loud.