SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Of misogyny, misandry, and misanthropy.

They're Greek to me -- to all of us, in fact.

mi-soj-uh-nee
mis-an-dree
mis-an-thruh-pee

But first, a shout out to LT for reminding me about misandry, which I don't recall seeing mentioned in the "Collected Spasms of Herr Trump," although misogyny is another story.

Predictably, a book already has been written about all three of Shane's words for today: Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy. It's a collection of essays published in 1989 by the University of California Press.

Digging further, it seems that misandry has become a veritable cottage industry for authors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young.

• Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture (2006)
• Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men (2006)
• Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man (2011)
• Replacing Misandry: A Revolutionary History of Men (2015)

(As an aside, Nathanson also is the author of a groundbreaking exploration of Jeff Gahan's Floyd County Democratic Party: Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz As a Secular Myth of America.)

For most casual observers, misogyny is the best known of these words.

The (Etymological) Roots of misogyny

Misogyny may be distinguished from the closely related word sexism, which signifies discrimination based on sex (although it most frequently refers to discrimination against women) and also carries the meaning “behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex.”

Misogyny refers specifically to a hatred of women. The word is formed from the Greek roots misein (“to hate”) and gynē (“woman”). Each of these roots can be found in other English words, both common and obscure. Gynē helped to form gynecologist and androgynous, and misein can be found in such words as misoneism (“a hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change”) and misandry (“a hatred of men”).

Knowing that "mis(o)-" refers to hate, and the Greek ανδρειος (andreios) means "manly, masculine" (deriving from ανηρ (aner) "man"), misandry quickly defines itself. According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of misandry among English speakers came during the late 19th century, while misogyny dates all the way back to 1656. This in itself seems significant, as though hating women was something so common as to be taken for granted.

And misanthropy?

The word "anthropo-" is borrowed from the Greek for "human," and so misanthropy is the "hatred, dislike, or distrust of humankind."

Perhaps this column's namesake can help us with a question: Is there a word for "hatred of public housing residents?"

Or did you have to attend New Albany High School (as opposed to Floyd Central) to answer such a query?