(no subject)

It's a natural and inevitable process of language (the technical term for which escapes me) that strong words lose their strength of meaning. There are plenty of familiar examples: "Terrible" once meant "inspiring terror" rather than merely being an useful description of The Armageddon Factor. So too "awesome", "excellent", "unique", and so forth.

That said, I'm sorry to see "misogyny" go. Only a decade ago, it was the next step up in power from "sexism". Now it's replacing that weary old soldier, losing its literal meaning of "hatred of women". No longer does it describe the most hostile and vicious forms of prejudice; minor stereotyping will do. (This of course results in a great grinding of gears when speaker and listener understand different meanings.)

So what do we replace "misogyny" with? More Greek? "Gynophobia" is (a) already taken and (b) looks ridiculous. What about Latin - "femosor" or something? No-one's going to know what it means. Should we stick to the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary borrow the title of Andrea Dworkin's Woman Hating? But then what do we do for a new term in another decade's time when (for example) writing slash becomes "woman hating"?

(no subject)

WHAT A DAY. Spent a completely brilliant morning trimming the tree with hermaj, irritant01, and his missus, then had a completely brilliant lunch. Then tried to do my belated Christmas shopping at Castle Towers. Its rubbish touch screen map sent me on multiple wild goose chases. Thanks to the less than brilliant public transport, it took me two and a half hours to get home (it's a half hour car ride), including a brisk half hour walk through 30° heat. (I assume I've made it home in time for the grocery delivery - if not, they haven't left a note or a phone msg, so fingers crossed). Just before I left, one of the shelves in the fridge snapped in half; when I got home, I discovered that my iPod's screen is destroyed, and what's more, I appear to have deleted an album I bought before our OS trip without first backing it up to CD, meaning if I want it I shall have to pay for it again. BAH HUMBUG.

ETA: The groceries arrived and I found the album, which I had bought as an actual, physical CD, rather than an iTunes download. huzzah