Discussion Etymological Fallacy

[Narroo]

Etymological Fallacy

(From Wikipedia)
An etymological fallacy is an argument that a word is defined by its etymology, and that its customary usage is therefore incorrect.

Occurrence and examples​

An etymological fallacy becomes possible when a word's meaning shifts over time from its original meaning. Such changes can include a narrowing or widening of scope or a change of connotation (amelioration or pejoration). In some cases, modern usage can shift to the point where the new meaning has no evident connection to its etymon.

An example of a word with a potentially misleading etymology is antisemitism. The structure of the word suggests that it is about opposition to and hatred of Semitic peoples, but the term was coined in the 19th century to specifically refer to anti-Jewish beliefs and practices, and explicitly defined Jewish people as a racial class. Modern anthropology and evolutionary biology overwhelmingly reject the concept of race, and the term Semite has now become largely obsolete, with the notable exception of classifying Semitic languages. An etymological fallacy emerges when a speaker asserts that antisemitism is not restricted to hatred of Jews, but rather must include opposition to all other Semitic peoples.

This is a word I wish I knew existed years ago. Back in the early 10's, I totally would have thrown it around in every "What is a JRPG?" discussion I could. Dark Souls be damned! Incidentally, I think a lot of arguments on the internet could be avoided or solved in people knew of, and avoided, the etymological fallacy.

 

[kvetcha]

Literally makes me pull my hair out

 

[Yzz]

From what I remember the whole "Are video games ART?" wars of last decade stopped because of this. Some people still had the 19th century definition of art in their heads.

 

[Narroo]

From what I remember the whole "Are video games ART?" wars of last decade stopped because of this. Some people still had the 19th century definition of art in their heads.

Actually, this is not an example of the etymological fallacy. It is natural for the definition of words to evolve over time. Consequently, it is natural for the definition of a word to evolve heterogeneously, such that different people have mildly different definitions of a word. All because your definition is newer, does not mean it's more valid or better than another commonly held definition. Language is merely a tool to communicate. When large groups of people collectively hold differing definitions of a word, you need to accept it and continue the conversation about the underlying concepts, as opposed to insisting that they use your definition.

The etymological fallacy refers to when people pick apart the etymology of a word to change it's definition to an improper definition, in order to win an argument in a way that is irrelevant to the argument.

For example (a surprisingly relevant example): Antisemite. (I'm just going off the wikipedia entry here.)

The word was originally coined by a German antisemite in 1860 as a more polite, scientific alternative to terms such as "jew hater", et cetera (according to my understanding, at least.) It was explicitly coined as a in reference to Jewish people, and hating Jewish people, in an ethnic sense. The word was literally a way of saying "I don't hate Judaism or it's practice. I hate the jews themselves, as a race." And that's been pretty much it's definition for the past 150 years or so.

Occasionally though, you get people who try to read the word hyper-literally in order to claim that they're not antisemitic. They say : "Semite refers to several groups of people, not just the jews. I don't hate Semites in general. Therefore I am not antisemitic!"

The fallacies are that: 1, this is not a proper definition that is generally observed by people. A words etymology does not determine it's definition. It's a bad faith argument. And 2: You've completely missed the point of the argument. Being an anti-semite isn't a bad thing because someone out there decided that hating semitic people is extra bad "just because." Antisemite means "to be hostile or prejudiced against Jewish people." It's a bad word, because of what those antisemites did to jewish people. Picking apart the word's etymology does not change whether or not a person hates jewish people. It's just a deflection.

(Ugh, that took longer to explain than I would have liked. )

Basically, the etymological fallacy is not when a person has an outdated definition of a word or misunderstands the word, or has a definition that you don't like. That's natural for language. It's when someone makes an improper argument, usually in bad faith, by picking apart the etymology of a word, despite the etymology being completely irrelavant to either the argument or the word's definition.