Thursday, August 16, 2018
Obesophobia
George Monbiot, "We're in a new age of obesity. How did it happen? You'd be surprised," Guardian (August 15, 2018):
I once was thin (under a hundred pounds when I graduated from high school) but now am fat. I'm a pachyphile, not a pachyphobe. My goal is to be Omo de panza, omo de sostanza. In reading the entry for παχύς in Liddell-Scott-Jones, I see ample classical precedents for the proverb:
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Perhaps this is because obesophobia is often a fatly-disguised form of snobbery. In most rich nations, obesity rates are much higher at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale.To a linguistic snob such as I am, the word obesophobia is an abomination. It's a hybrid compound, a mishmash, cobbled together from a Latin root (obesus) and a Greek one (φόβος). A better formation would be pachyphobia, with the first element coming from Greek παχύς = thick, fat. Cf. pachyderm and Oxford English Dictionary s.v. pachy-, comb. form.
I once was thin (under a hundred pounds when I graduated from high school) but now am fat. I'm a pachyphile, not a pachyphobe. My goal is to be Omo de panza, omo de sostanza. In reading the entry for παχύς in Liddell-Scott-Jones, I see ample classical precedents for the proverb:
οἱ παχέες men of substance, the wealthy, Hdt. 5.30,77, 6.91; "τοὺς π. καὶ πλουσίους" Ar. Pax 639; ὃς ἂν ᾖ π. Id. Eq. 1139; ἀνὴρ π. Id. V. 287; cf. πάχης.Related posts: Pejorocracy
