Paedophilia

Ask anyone who knows me. I am not a linguistic revisionist. I am very happy with the way our language constantly bends and adjusts. I think the French academy idea is pointless and ridiculous. Moreover it is damaging/has damaged the French language - possibly beyond repair.

One of the amazing things about the English language is the manner in which it has ever been pleased even eager to adopt from other languages. This alone has helped to make it the language in which it is possible to express more things than any other. It has also given us a set of spellings that are the wonderment of the world. English spellings indicate more often than not the route that a particular word or phrase has taken to worm itself into the vocabulary and given the sheer number of languages that it has borrowed from it ensures a set of spellings that would boggle the mind.

Often times it is possible to take a fairly accurate stab at the meaning of an unknown word if only you can figure out its components. This is particularly true if the root language of the original was Greek or Latin. Sometimes you will be able to identify a word that has come from for example Greek via French by a change in spelling. There is almost an archaeological element to some of our words.

OK, so, having said all of that there is one word that is really annoying me. It has had its meaning twisted so far out of kilter by lawyers and social workers and trick cyclists that I would like to suggest that we the laity of language users should claim it back. It's a good Greek word - paedophile.

Etymologically it ought to mean, it signals to a user, a lover of children. In current usage it means just about the opposite of that. It almost dignifies the undignified and corrupting behaviour of adults who are sexually attracted to children. Pederast maybe. Paedophile surely not. Where is the philos? The love? Remember that the average paedophile blames the child for coming on to them! Love?

So, what do we do about it? Firstly let's decide what we are going to call there people. When I was a child these people were there but they were known as and called child-molesters. Seems good enough to me. We could use that. But just as an experiment I asked a couple of Greeks what they call these sorts of people and amazingly they all came back at me with a Middle English word - monster. How very appropriate. Whatever it is we call these people let's not call them "lovers of children". And let me suggest that our way of taking this beautiful word back from these very ugly people is to stop and correct anyone who uses the P word to describe them. Write to or email newspapers or other media that use the P word and correct them. Correct everyone. Call them as they are: child molesters; monsters; both.