I am looking for a name for an idea that I have for a website. It is a niche hobby, but there is a greek word for it that most people don’t know. Lets say its a book club and the word was Bibliophile or a music club called Melophile.

Would you, if you did not know the meaning, think of it as something sexual, or maybe even something bad? I am nervous that users might relate it to pedophile even though that is just one of, (but maybe best known) philias there are

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    It really depends. I think -phile tends to make me think non-sexual, and -philia makes me think sexual. Probably just because of how the words are used.

    People tend to be willing to describe themselves as an x-phile, but psychological or legal literature are more likely to say something like “a person with x-philia” or “displaying traits of x-philia”.

    • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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      7 months ago

      I suspect the part with descriptions in literature is due to it being in a 3rd person. There seems to be a recent-ish trend though for people to refer to themselves in a ‘person who has X’ sense though to separate the person from the condition so maybe that changes.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Person First language. “A person with autism” means we use the word for the diagnosis, rather than the word for a diagnosed person (e.g., “autist”? Was that ever a real word?).

        • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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          7 months ago

          That’s the phrase I was looking for.

          I’m pretty sure autist as a single word description was more a 4chan thing, but autistic person has been pretty common use.

          • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            In autistic online communities, we tend to refer to ourselves as autists. Sometimes I call myself “an autistic”.

            It doesn’t bother me, personally. And it seems to not bother the other autistic people I’ve interacted with.