8 ms·

> Melanoheliophobia Tangential, but this being a nearly word-for-word translation of “black hole fear” made me realize how odd it is that we insist on latinizi

> Melanoheliophobia Tangential, but this being a nearly word-for-word translation of “black hole fear” made me realize how odd it is that we insist on latinizing these things.

somenameforme 2mo ago
I've also wondered the same thing about healthcare and other fields. All the complex sounding phrases are child-like in simplicity in their "native" tongue, yet completely indecipherable to most people in modern times. Quite a weird and undesirable path we ended up going down through inertia.
- antonvs 2mo ago
  It’s arguable whether it’s weird or undesirable. There are benefits to using unusual words when they have precise scientific or other technical meaning. It helps identify them as terms of art, so that they’re not confused with their native tongue equivalent, which invariably has much looser meanings.
  - somenameforme 2mo ago
    Sure, but I think there's some cause/effect to consider there. The same logic would have applied in Ancient Rome, but I expect that people would have likely been less casual with their usage of such terms when they also had specific technical meanings. For example many food dishes we have retain basic naming conventions, yet have well understood meaning. In the US a customer ordering spaghetti is likely to be quite unhappy if they get a cream sauce, even though the order itself is literally just the name of the noodle.
    - TeMPOraL 2mo ago
      "Spaghetti" is a great example - notice how you have specific expectations of food that happens to be named in a foreign (relative to where you live) language.
      - deleted 2mo ago
        [deleted]
    - antonvs 2mo ago
      > I expect that people would have likely been less casual with their usage of such terms when they also had specific technical meanings. Why would you expect that? It seems the opposite of what we see in practice. Colloquial language typically makes no concessions to technical usage. Your example works against your own position. “Spaghetti” is an Italian word, much like the Greek portmanteau that started this discussion. The idea that it implies a particular sauce is purely regional, as you noted by saying “In the US”. (I had to ask an LLM what you might mean - apparently you would expect tomato sauce.) Ironically, that would not be expected in Italy. So here we have a word taken from another language, which has a local connotation which depends on a shared context. As with all language, one has to learn that context. It doesn’t matter that much what the words are. If the word had been “thinnoodle” instead, that’s what you would have learned and been familiar with. (“Noodle” comes from German and entered English about 65 years before spaghetti, apparently.)
      - somenameforme 2mo ago
        I suppose the difference I see, and the motivation for change, is an issue of familiarity. Everybody knows what spaghetti is and so calling it thin noodle doesn't add much clarity for most people. By contrast many, probably the overwhelming majority, of terms that are in Latin are unfamiliar. And continuing to pile on in that domain just adds to the things people will generally be unfamiliar with. And these are in domains that people will certainly come into contact with in their life, like healthcare, so it's not like just nitpicking over e.g. pure math's preference for having people's names attached to various mathematical constructs as opposed to something even vaguely descriptive. Very few people will ever interact with pure math in 'normal' life, so it's largely inconsequential. I mean just imagine we were going to do things over, and in starting to name medical conditions somebody said, 'Hey I have an idea - instead of naming everything in an obvious way let's name everything using some obscure language almost nobody understands.' Nobody would really be on board with that, but we ultimately ended up in that exact scenario.
- taneq 2mo ago
  I’ve long considered medical jargon to be Latin Buffyspeak[1] because it’s usually just describing the body part, often simplistically, but in Latin so it sounds fancy. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuffySpeak https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuffySpeak
- efilife 2mo ago
  It's useful to search for the same thing and get results in different languages
cwnyth 2mo ago
Helio- is actually "sun", not "hole", and it's Greek, not Latin, but I 100% agree with you: it's pointless technical vocabulary that only serves to obfuscate. I think in this particular case, it's just some internet neologism (which is a good word, since coinage can mean a couple different things), made based on analogies with older phobias. For those of us who know Latin and Greek, though, all we can really do is shrug at the eagerness to make the clumsiest words possible.
- brador 2mo ago
  What would be the correct latin/greek word for it?
  - kortilla 2mo ago
    Hypochondriac
  - stavros 2mo ago
    Melanotrypophobia, although the Greek term is "mayri trypa", literally "black hole".
    - brador 2mo ago
      Any relation to the words melancholy?
      - ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
        Yes, that is cognate with ancient Greek μελαγχολία, and with the same root: μέλας https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melancholy https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melancholy
      - stavros 2mo ago
        Yes, as the sibling said, melancholy means "black bile".
  - cwnyth 2mo ago

> Melanoheliophobia Tangential, but this being a nearly word-for-word translation of “black hole fear” made me realize how odd it is that we insist on latinizing these things.

somenameforme 2mo ago

I've also wondered the same thing about healthcare and other fields. All the complex sounding phrases are child-like in simplicity in their "native" tongue, yet completely indecipherable to most people in modern times. Quite a weird and undesirable path we ended up going down through inertia.

antonvs 2mo ago
It’s arguable whether it’s weird or undesirable. There are benefits to using unusual words when they have precise scientific or other technical meaning. It helps identify them as terms of art, so that they’re not confused with their native tongue equivalent, which invariably has much looser meanings.
- somenameforme 2mo ago
  Sure, but I think there's some cause/effect to consider there. The same logic would have applied in Ancient Rome, but I expect that people would have likely been less casual with their usage of such terms when they also had specific technical meanings. For example many food dishes we have retain basic naming conventions, yet have well understood meaning. In the US a customer ordering spaghetti is likely to be quite unhappy if they get a cream sauce, even though the order itself is literally just the name of the noodle.
  - TeMPOraL 2mo ago
    "Spaghetti" is a great example - notice how you have specific expectations of food that happens to be named in a foreign (relative to where you live) language.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
  - antonvs 2mo ago
    > I expect that people would have likely been less casual with their usage of such terms when they also had specific technical meanings. Why would you expect that? It seems the opposite of what we see in practice. Colloquial language typically makes no concessions to technical usage. Your example works against your own position. “Spaghetti” is an Italian word, much like the Greek portmanteau that started this discussion. The idea that it implies a particular sauce is purely regional, as you noted by saying “In the US”. (I had to ask an LLM what you might mean - apparently you would expect tomato sauce.) Ironically, that would not be expected in Italy. So here we have a word taken from another language, which has a local connotation which depends on a shared context. As with all language, one has to learn that context. It doesn’t matter that much what the words are. If the word had been “thinnoodle” instead, that’s what you would have learned and been familiar with. (“Noodle” comes from German and entered English about 65 years before spaghetti, apparently.)
    - somenameforme 2mo ago
      I suppose the difference I see, and the motivation for change, is an issue of familiarity. Everybody knows what spaghetti is and so calling it thin noodle doesn't add much clarity for most people. By contrast many, probably the overwhelming majority, of terms that are in Latin are unfamiliar. And continuing to pile on in that domain just adds to the things people will generally be unfamiliar with. And these are in domains that people will certainly come into contact with in their life, like healthcare, so it's not like just nitpicking over e.g. pure math's preference for having people's names attached to various mathematical constructs as opposed to something even vaguely descriptive. Very few people will ever interact with pure math in 'normal' life, so it's largely inconsequential. I mean just imagine we were going to do things over, and in starting to name medical conditions somebody said, 'Hey I have an idea - instead of naming everything in an obvious way let's name everything using some obscure language almost nobody understands.' Nobody would really be on board with that, but we ultimately ended up in that exact scenario.
taneq 2mo ago
I’ve long considered medical jargon to be Latin Buffyspeak[1] because it’s usually just describing the body part, often simplistically, but in Latin so it sounds fancy. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuffySpeak https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuffySpeak
efilife 2mo ago
It's useful to search for the same thing and get results in different languages

cwnyth 2mo ago

Helio- is actually "sun", not "hole", and it's Greek, not Latin, but I 100% agree with you: it's pointless technical vocabulary that only serves to obfuscate. I think in this particular case, it's just some internet neologism (which is a good word, since coinage can mean a couple different things), made based on analogies with older phobias. For those of us who know Latin and Greek, though, all we can really do is shrug at the eagerness to make the clumsiest words possible.

brador 2mo ago
What would be the correct latin/greek word for it?
- kortilla 2mo ago
  Hypochondriac
- stavros 2mo ago
  Melanotrypophobia, although the Greek term is "mayri trypa", literally "black hole".
  - brador 2mo ago
    Any relation to the words melancholy?
    - ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
      Yes, that is cognate with ancient Greek μελαγχολία, and with the same root: μέλας https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melancholy https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melancholy
    - stavros 2mo ago
      Yes, as the sibling said, melancholy means "black bile".
- cwnyth 2mo ago