Wednesday, 10 February 2010

What is Misoproliny? My new word... on hating children

creative commons non-deriv/attrib licenseI love English. It's so cool the way you can make up whole new words by using other language pieces.


Misogyny is a combined word, from the Greek, using miso- meaning 'hater' and -gyny meaning 'woman', neatly making the commonplace 'womanhater.'


Misanthrophy is the same prefix with the suffix which means both all people and men --neatly confusing the issue whenever it's 'manhating' rather than 'hating people' that is at issue.


The suffix proli- means child. A misoproliny is, therefore, a childhater. Strange, considering the decades of vile and hateful texts circulating as parenting advice and pedagogy, that this word has never before been coined. On the other hand, I'll take credit for making it up...