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Nine News typo

Det. Supt Peter Cotter from the NSW Homicide Squad won't be thanking Nine News for this one.

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I know what it’s like to make typos, so let’s not get on the high horse….

But Det. Supt Peter Cotter from the NSW Homicide Squad won’t be thanking Nine News for this one.

Ooops.

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  1. @Paull: At the risk of stating the obvious, all words are made up. Claustrophobic, anarchy, luddite, automobile, television – none of these words existed until someone invented them to describe a new idea or thing. All of the major dictionaries (Oxford, Cambridge, Collins, Merriam-Webster, etc) list “homophobic” with its current meaning and usage, so I’m going to say that it does exist.

    My guess is that most people associate the prefix “homo-” with homosexuality because the term “a homo” is in common use to refer to a gay man, often disparagingly, but not always. Hence, when most people use the term “homo” they mean “homosexual”.

    Your assertion that “homo” is simply a contraction of homogenous is as inaccurate as saying that “hetero” is a contraction of heterogenous. Henry and Brian Hillston have already correctly stated the origins for “homo” and “homo-“.

    The first is from Latin and simply means “man” or “person”, homicide being the killing of a person. The second is from Greek and means “the same”, homosexual meaning sex between those that are the same, specifically people of the same gender (althoough, in theory, it could have been deemed to mean sex between people who vote the same way or wear the same hat).

  2. Homophobic is just a made up word.

    As for the typo, why is it automatically associated with homosexuality? The prefex ‘homo’ is simply a shortening of the word ‘homogeneous.

  4. Cide = a learned borrowing from Latin meaning “killer,” “act of killing,” used in the formation of compound words.

    Homo = 1: Noun: the genus of bipedal primates that includes modern humans and several extinct forms, distinguished by their large brains and a dependence upon tools. Compare archaic Homo.

    2. Informal . ( sometimes lowercase )
    a member of the genus Homo.
    b.the species Homo sapiens or one of its members.

    So technically the same thing as it’s proper spelling.

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