New Words

[poliphilo]

I love new words. New words mean new ideas. They mean you can talk sharply about something that was all fuzzy before.

I guess these words have been used by academics for a while now, but they're new to me.

So, I pull the chord, the curtain slides back, and here they are:

Homosocial

Heterosocial

Mainly they're used as adjectives, but they can be nouns as well. The words homosociality and heterosociality also occur.

To be homosocial is to dig the company of your own sex. To be heterosocial is to dig the company of the opposite sex.

And to be autosocial is to wish that everybody else would go take a running jump.

Google "homosocial" and you'll find theses with titles like "Male Homosocial Desire in Thomas Hardy" and "Homosocial Intimacy in the Old West."

Homo and hetero sociality have nothing to do with sexual orientation. Many homosocials are heterosexual and many heterosocials homosexual. Sorry, it gets a bit tonguetwisty after a while.

And now I'm going to play with my new toys.

This is a homosocial society. It regards heterosociality as aberrant. I found that out when (aged 11) I chickened out of crossing over from the boys' side of the aisle to go sit with my girlfriends. I am profoundly heterosocial. The rituals of male homosociality- talking about cars, playing golf, drinking and messing about in packs- have always disgusted me.

Look ma; not only new words- I got a new identity as well!

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the nifty new words!

I am still trying to get over "prioritize."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The more new words the better.

They allow us to think things we haven't thought before.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Oh, this just made me think of a quote I had to post, from The Boomer Bible:
Speak to me of your love of Language,
You who were raised to use four-letter words,
To express all your deepest emotions.
And have you ever read something aloud
just to savor the way that it sounds?
Have you hungered and hunted for words that give life
to the subtlest distinctions you feel,
and felt your conscious space expand
because now there were more ways to feel?
Have you prowled through the jungles of syntax and grammar
to see just how much one sentence can say?
Have you felt the power that language can give
to the building and thinking of thoughts?
Have you ever once felt that you said it just right
and conveyed your full thought to another?
Have you felt brand-new worlds take shape in your mind
from no other source than the spinning and spinning of words?
Have you acquired a different taste of life,
By trying another world's tongue,
and felt a new timbre enter your voice,
echoing Rome or the steppes or the Seine?
Have you seen how language, all by itself,
can alter the nature of truth
and twist and distort, or distill and reflect
the innermost essence of things?

I just love it. And your new words reminded me of it. I'm mostly heterosocial, myself...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Boomer Bible is new to me.

Obviously I need to explore further....

Thanks.