On 2024-07-04 18:43, Rainer Weikusat via Dng wrote:
> Antony Stone <Antony.Stone@???> writes:
>> On Thursday 04 July 2024 at 17:42:02, Rainer Weikusat via Dng wrote:
>>> xyzphobe is a pattern for forming terms supposed to suggest that people
>>> critical of opinions one happens to favour really suffer from mental
>>> health problems ("phobias").
>>
>> I thought such words were based on the Greek suffix for "aversion" (in contrast
>> to the suffix "philia" meaning "love / attraction") and exist not only to
>> describe people but also things, for example in chemistry "hydrophobic" means
>> something that does not mix with water whereas "hydrophilic" means something
>> attracted to water.
>
> Arachnophobe denotes someone suffering ftom arachnophobia,
> claustrophobe someone suffering from claustrophobia and mysophobe
> someone suffering from mysophobia. These are all well-established,
> medical terms (and there are more of this kind for other phobias).

Certain prefixes that are currently trending are used like a dog
whistle, which also serve as "name calling".

A phobia is an irrational fear. Correct?

If a child gets many spider bites, and they develop a fear of spiders,
it's not irrational. So unless you know the person well, it is name
calling to say they have a phobia.

I can take a load name calling, but it's childish.

Interesting that propagandacritic.com is down. hmmmm...

I should print it out. Someone may be thankful in a 451F world.