Monday 20 March 2006

Constructing new words

One cool thing about English is that it is a living language. We can construct new words from old roots like dys (Latin: bad), theo (Greek: God) and ist (Greek: agent) to create "dystheist", a cousin to the word "atheist", meaning someone who believes/advocates an incorrect view of God. I guess at some point in history a dystheist would have been called a heretic. "Dystheist" would have to be a judgement from someone else, though, because I don't think a person would never voluntarily identify their own current beliefs about God as incorrect.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Everyone at the Coffee Club last night should have known this was coming.
PPS - Credit for the construction of the word goes to Anna, as requested.

1 comment:

Linda said...

Often a person's contemporaries would assign the title of heretic because a person believed something radical. However, it is up to history and the evaluation of 1000's of people that follow as to whether or not the name sticks. Thought that you would comforted to know, that the decision is not left up to one person. Linda