Talk:Etymological fallacy

message: I think that a good example could be sourced to http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/definition.html un☯mi 23:28, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for an example 

message: I don't find this to be a particularly good example. I thought hound just meant dog generally. I thought the article was going to say the opposite thing. --WikiDonn (talk) 21:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: My dictionary (Cassell) defines a hound as a "dog used in hunting"; see also . However, I certainly wouldn't object if you exchanged this for a better example :-) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hounds? 

message: Reading the original essay, it seems to me that Tolkien didn't mean the same thing by "etymological fallacy" as this article is about.
I think Tolkien meant that we should not be misled into thinking that Old English words which look similar to Modern English words are related gssq (talk) 04:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah. This whole page really doesn't sound like Tolkien at all! --BenMcLean (talk) 05:15, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tolkien 

message: I think this article could use some NPOV.  These examples seem controversial.  I'd like to hear the explanation why it would pass muster to say that someone gypped you out of your money, but not that he jewed you out of it. Wnt (talk) 18:50, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The "gyp" example is poor for a lot of reasons. In addition to what you mentioned, there's also the fact that offense is a subjective thing, so someone saying that they, personally, find something offensive and giving a reason is a statement of fact not an argument.24.185.99.22 (talk) 00:05, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  gypped 

message: Plato represents Socrates as arguing against the idea of shifting definitions in the Protagoras, the Euthydemus (dialogue) and many other places. Many great philosophers would strongly disagree with much of what this page says. I expect that most metaphysical libertarians, for example, would argue against Compatibilism from the idea of the word "freedom" or the term "free will" having an essential, true meaning. Many great philosophies have held that words correspond to true essences. This page dogmatically takes controversial positions on these and a whole slew of other philosophy of language-related objections. --BenMcLean (talk) 05:11, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Protagoras (dialogue)]] 

message: See the rest of the talk page above for specifics, especially the last comment about philosophical disagreements. This is NOT a logical fallacy, but rather an informal fallacy. (that needs more discussion than a "See Also" link) Additionally, it is POV to presume that the definition of a word is what some plurality of humans determine it to be. Many words (such as xenophobic, homophobic) don't mean the same thing to everybody. The fallacy is only invoked when used to base an argument on a word's definition alone. Examples of when something is vs. isn't a fallacy would be good. --129.106.31.105 (talk) 13:39, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagged for cleanup 

message: I dispute that this is a fallacy AT ALL. It is more like an ad hoc movement by people who doesn't understand that words are intended to have a meaning, and that changing it (through history) renders their arguments invalid. Why is this considered a fallacy?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bodhidharmazen (talk • contribs) 15:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Words and meanings obviously do change throughout history or you wouldn't have posted that in modern 21st-century English, would you? Equinox ◑ 13:04, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  validity of assuming this is a fallacy in the first place 

message: Bernspeed (talk) 23:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Bernspeed! Maybe they have had this concept. The question relevant for the Wikipedia article is whether there is a reliable source saying so. One of the main principles of Wikipedia is that we don't include original research, that is, we don't include information just because we think it is true, even if we are quite certain about it. We only use reliable information that is already out there in the world, e.g. in textbooks or peer-reviewed scientific journals. (At least that's the idea. Wikipedia is not perfect, of course, but we aim to be.) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:08, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Proto-Indo-Europeans

message: I know that the titularization of this, let's say "thought process", as a fallacy is sourced; however, the way in which it is worded, as "a [...] fallacy that holds that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily be similar to its historical meaning", makes it in itself a curiously inverted is-ought fallacy to categorize it as a fallacy. The normative statement what the meaning of a word or phrase should be cannot in itself be factually wrong or mistaken, the term "fallacy" hence does not seem appropriate. --Don Ecchi (talk) 20:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for this analysis! I think the problem is indeed the wording of our definition. Sihler (the source given for this sentence) says that to "declare for example that the real meaning of doctor is teacher" constitutes an etymological fallacy. No is–ought fallacy here as far as I can tell. I'll try to reword our lead. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 06:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Validity of assuming this is a Fallacy in the first Place, pt. 2 

message: This article seems completely focussed on prescriptive views of language, the idea that people who are conservative about language might think that a new meaning of a word must be wrong because they know an older meaning, which is a fallacy. But surely that is a very trivial use of the concept, hardly deserving its own article, especially as the point is perfectly well covered at linguistic prescription. I would have thought that the "etymological fallacy" really becomes important in completely different concepts, when people cite etymologies to sway political arguments etc. The English word abortion comes from a Latin word that meant "miscarriage". If someone were to build that detail into an argument in the abortion debate to argue that abortion is just a form of miscarriage then we would disallow their argument on the basis they have committed the fallacy of thinking that etymology is relevant to the use of the word in the case at hand. In theological debates you hear a lot of this kind of thing: baptism should be by immersion because the etymology of the word baptism implies "dipping". Surely it is in the context of debating that logical falacies become interesting. Doric Loon (talk) 12:34, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The etymology itself is the entire catalogue of meaning that a word has had over its chronological lifetime. While the original meaning may be outdated, the present derived meaning may be manipulated, hijacked, propagandized. Just look at any political concept (like socialism, capitalism, etc) from the 1850's, and then look how people described them by the 1950's. Most scientific terminology goes through the ringer, including the chronological timeline of events that describe the phenomena. Without an etymology, you have fewer references to the historical meaning of the language that recorded events to this point. Even if no direct written evidence of a culture is left, the existence of a derivative language that has that word means that you know certain concepts were in play at a particular time. Semantics and semiotics are necessarily intertwined across time in that way. 2607:9880:3118:34:BD9B:6E7B:88ED:8977 (talk) 19:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance in debating 

message: An anonymous editor posted to my talk page to disagree with the slant of the article:
:Since we were talking about the concept of etymology, which, of course, is the catalogue of a word's meaning across time, we can very clearly see that the coinage of the term goes back to Gottenberg school, who explicitly coined the term with racial connotations and conflated semites with Jewish people. As we both agree, there is no world where the definition of semite is independent of its etymology. Semites now, of course, refer to all the speakers of semitic languages, not a specific set within that set. So, if you're conflating anti-semitism and judeaphobia, then you're necessarily resorting back to a racial meaning. And if you're using racial terminology, then I'm afraid that you're classifying people by race."
First off, I'm not doing anything.  I'm just reporting what sources say.  Sources say that anti-semitism is the same as anti-Judaism (judeaphobia) as you put it.  If you disagree with that, well, that's the whole mistaken belief that this section is contesting.  Secondly, reporting on the beliefs of racists does not mean endorsing them.  Anti-semites are scum.  Just...  if you ask the anti-Semites themselves...  their writings from 1870-1945 or so make pretty clear that they're specifically opposed to Jews.
Nobody uses the term "Semites" seriously aside from crazed Jew-haters, but it'd be especially incorrect to think it means "speakers of Semitic languages."  Is Pope Benedict XVI a "Semite" because he knows how to speak Hebrew?  While "Semitic languages" is still a family tree in linguistics, "Semite" to mean "speaker of a Semitic language" is not a term in use.  SnowFire (talk) 02:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-semitism