Illustration: Anu Garg
A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg
Last year, Dan Barker, an author, speaker, and co-president of FFRF, told me about a word he had coined, contraduction, for the act of inverting reality.
As he describes it, “Have you ever been sitting in a train that’s not moving when the train next to you starts to move and you briefly think it is you who is moving? You got it backward.”
That’s contraduction.
Another example of contraduction is claiming that conditions like gravity and other constants were fine tuned for us. In reality, it’s we who evolved to fit them.
The fallacy has been around, but the word is new. It isn’t yet in the dictionary, but it fills a need, and if enough people use it, it might even find a place.
Thankfully, Dan Barker has written a compact, very readable book that offers more examples and insights. The book is out this week: Contraduction.
And that’s the secret to coining a word. Identify a concept that has been around yet doesn’t have a word to describe it. This week we’ll feature five coined words that are already in the dictionary.
Do you have examples of contraduction? Share on our website or email us at words@wordsmith.org (include your location: city, state).
misogynoir
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: Hatred or prejudice directed toward Black women.
ETYMOLOGY:
Coined by the scholar and writer Moya Bailey (b. 1983) as a blend of misogyny + French noir (black). The word misogyny is from Greek miso- (hate) + gyne (woman). Earliest documented use: 2010.