Thursday, April 10, 2008

You say Massagonistic, I say Misogynistic

I like to go to the Google Trends site now and then, just to see what people are looking for. Google Trends simply lists the top Google searches of the last hour.

The word Misogynistic is number eight, out of 100 words and phrases listed. Why?
Because of a comment made by Sir Elton John during a Clinton fundraiser.

The British singer, who, of course, is not allowed to vote in this country, played his hits "Border Song" and "Your Song," adding: "I'm amazed by the misogynistic attitudes of some of the people in this country. And I say to hell with them...I love you Hillary, I'll be there for you."

One might just as easily argue that opponents of Obama have racist attitudes. Or that opponents of Dennis Kucinich have a deep and abiding hatred of the mentally disabled. Or it could be that Hillary's opponents don't like her because....aw, I'm going to get off-topic if I don't settle down. Back to misogyny:

Define Misogynistic: "characterized by a hatred of women".

Guess what word is number 97?

Massagonistic.

Hit the link, and see how many times Massagonistic is used on sites and on weblogs.
Hundreds of thousands of people had to voluntarily type "Massagonistic" into Google to make this happen.
I'll admit to being a creative speller.
And I usually avoid the whole lie, lay, lain confusion in favor of "recline".
I throw commas everywhere except where they're needed.
But I try. Lord knows, I try.

Massagonistic? Massagonistic? Hundreds of thousands of people who can operate a computer searched for the term Massagonistic????? I fear for my country....

But maybe it's not a spelling thing.

Define Massagonistic: On most of the sites that use the word, it seems to mean "lack of respect for your (ahem) womenfolks". Did one rap artist spell the word this way in some liner notes, and it took off from there?

I could be wrong. I'm 46, and therefore I'm totally out of touch.

Please advise. Is this a spelling/education problem, and no one in our nation knows what Sir Elton John is talking about when he uses his fancy British words, or is massagonistic now another term?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zbeth says:
I am eagerly awaiting the results for this.
What does Google say? Say again?

Anonymous said...

Woman hating does exist in America. Even by some of the most "respectful" and "committed to their ho" men. Believe it, or not.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

And lest anyone think I'm exagerrating the number of people who have "Massagonistic" in their working vocabulary.....put the word into Google or Yahoo.
This site is now the #1 search result for the word. (MSN and ASK.COM don't like me as much....) About 30 people per day have been coming here as a result of "Define Massagonistic" searches.
Unbelieveable.
I'm thinking of changing the definition in the post to "one who dislikes spinach" or "having an irrational interest in prime numbers" just to see if I can make it happen in the real world.
Bizarre.

AlanKH said...

I would have guessed that "massagonistic" refers to hatred of nineteenth-century American slave owners.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

OOooohhhh.
Bad one.

Unknown said...

I think it's a spelling issue. I had a clear definition of the word, yet had no clue how to spell it.

It's a positive thing: at least people are inquisitive enough to look for the actual spelling, rather than perpetuating the incorrect one.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Alex,
I'm thinking that it showed up spelled that way on the liner notes to a rap CD, and it's taken off from there.

I don't mean to go sociological here, but the websites that spell it as "massogonistic" generally use a lot of street slang, and use the word to express outright dominance, rather than as general superiority.

One day, this thing is going to make an interesting Master's Thesis for somebody working on a linguistics degree.

foryourinformation said...

People who have searched for the spelling massagonistic are probably spelling phonetically, but are using this as a stepping stone to seek the correct spelling of the word, as I just did.