I'd simply guess "lover, liker, fond of", without any obligatory sexual connotation. Even if I don't recognise the first part, as in... say, "wugphile" ("wug" is just a nonsense placeholder).
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If you created a page called "Wugphile" I would totally think it was about linguistics :D
I assume the people who automatically think of something negative or sexual when hearing the word „phile“ are the same people you don’t want to associate with in the first place. Their opinion is worthless and can be ignored. Don’t waste your time with other people’s ignorance.
I'd agree with you, but if it is for the purpose of educating people, I wouldn't want to scare them away because they would feel its a risky click when linked to...
If I didn't know the meaning, I would just be confused about seeing the words since I wouldn't know what they meant.
No, but I'm surprised you didn't go with the suffix mania.
I don't know if this is international but it's a common joke in British media to use this as a bit of a joke, for example a geeky character might say that they're a bibliophile, and the dumb character will make it sexual.
Most people here say no. I'm not so sure, however.
There's only two words with the 'phile' ending that is sexual that I can think of. But audiophile, videophile, and a host of others use that ending in the context of a preference or attraction: nemophile has nothing to do with animated fish, for instance. Hemophilia is another example of a commonplace word that is definitely not sexual.
I want to think the average person knows there's no sex in halophilia, but we could be overestimating.
You may be right, but it is interesting that most sexual interests have a "-philia" name although they are described as paraphilias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paraphilias
Audiophile
"one who pays too much for speaker cables"
A true audiophile can tell the difference between when its wound clockwise vs anticlockwise. /s
Botanophile... my question is, what the average user who does not know the word or can guess it, will think of it. There is not doubt that it is not a sexual suffix, but if the reader does not recognize it, would they think it was?
Just go with Botanyphile. With perhaps a very brief explanation in the Forward.
That you like IRC bots.
When I hear "audiophile", I truly never think about licking the banana-plugs, so nope.
There are also some popular YT channels like Computerphile and Numberphile
Yeah another user mentioned those two too. The interesting part is that they have used a mixture of english and greek. For example Numberphile uses the enlish word "number" instead of the proper Arithmophile. I wonder if this is to make it easier to understand
Just remember that the average Lemmy user is a bit more literate than the average kneejerk reaction idiot. Id say theres nothing wrong with it but you can probably come up with something a little more catchy and clever if you put your mind to it.
I think you are right. I might go with a mixture of English and Greek like an other user mentioned (computerphile, numberphile, bookphile) even though they are not proper.
I honestly think Bibliophile is used commonly enough that most people would understand it. Not quite as much as Audiophile, but you do hear it. It also sounds, info, much better than Bookphile.
I would understand that it just means a connoisseur of something, but you could always change the spelling to "file" to make it more digital-y and even less associated with problematic obsessions.
This is actually interesting! I wanted to use "files" to start with, like "Flower-Files" but the domain was taken. So i thought flowerphiles could be a fun twist. The true word would be Anthophile though, (or Botanophile for plants) and people would not necessarilly know this (this is btw an example and not the actual wordplay that I am working on atm)
No. There's plenty of common examples of that suffix being used in a non-sexual non-negative context. For example: someone who enjoys reading books is called a bibliophile, there's also the youtube channels Computerphile and Numberphile.
yeah I used the bibliophile example in my text above. ,Computerphile and Numberphile, are mixed words of english/greek. It is actually interesting, for examble, that they have used Numberphile instead of Arithmophile, wich would be the actual word. My concern is when people don't recognize the prefix and only recognize the suffix, if that will be different
Nope.
No, because I know what the suffix means.
But this is my question. The suffix means "to like" but this can be a good and a bad thing, depending on what the prefix is, like mentioned in the description. If you did not recognize the prefix would the average user assume the suffix to be sexual or negatively charged?
Well, I don't think there is anything inherently sexual about the suffix, so no. But can't speak for the average user.