Wordcraft Home Page Wordcraft Community Home Page Forums The Vocabulary Forum hi, does anyone know this word imlooking for?
Wordcraft Community Home Page Forums The Vocabulary Forum hi, does anyone know this word imlooking for?Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| hi, does anyone know this word imlooking for? | Login/Join |
| Junior Member |
its supposed to refer to someone who roots for the underdog. kinda like captain nemo i guess. i read a comic book adaptation that described him as such. but for the life of me i cannot remember what that words is. i think it starts with a 'mis' ends with 'phist'(?) im not too sure about the last part. anyway, im surre its not misanthropist, just another word with 'mis' or something in it. all i know is, its used to define a personality who roots for the underdog or the "loser" side. thanks you very much for any help. =) | ||
|
| Member |
Those of us in our earliest boyhood gave our hearts to Conan Doyle, and have had from him so many hours of good refreshment, find our affection unshakable. What other man led a fuller and heartier and more masculine life? Doctor, whaler, athlete, writer, speculator, dramatist, historian, war correspondent, spiritualist, he was always the infracaninophile -- the helper of the underdog. Big in every way, his virtues had always something of the fresh vigor of the amateur, keen, open-minded, flexible, imaginative. If, as Doyle utterly believed, the spirits of the dead persist and can communicate, there is none that could have more wholesome news to impart to us than that brave and energetic lover of life. - Christopher Morley, from the preface to The Complete Sherlock Holmes | |||
|
| Junior Member |
wow, infracaninophile. i was way way way off. lol thank you so much tsuwm. especially for the speedy response. =) now, i can sleep peacefully. | |||
|
Member |
I believe Morley, in the passage tsuwm quotes, was the original coiner of this word, in 1930. (To which some of the learned responded that it should have been infracanophile.) | |||
|
Member |
Beneath-doggish-lover. Doesn't quite sound right to me. (An example of a sports term making it into the mainstream via late 19th century socialist writings.) If you're going to coin words and not upset the pedants, you ought to not mix Latin infra and caninus with Greek φιλη (philē). I don't think that underdogs in this case are those who are about to lose a contest ("he's always rooting for the underdog") but disadvantaged (economically) persons. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
|
| Member |
Are you referring to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? I don't know what the word would be, if not misanthropist. I'm sure that "infracanophile" is not in the comic. | |||
|
Member |
There's also a manga about a Captain Nemo who is supposed to be the son of the Jules Verne character; part of it is at http://www.gomanga.com/webmanga/index.php?series=nemo&page=1 Wikipedia says about him: That's not really a description of a misanthrope; the opposite, in fact. Although the term can be applied to those, such as hermits, who voluntarily exile themselves from their fellow humans, it cannot be applied to Nemo (père et fils); their self-exile is not out of loathing. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
|
| Member |
I don't know about the other Nemos, but my impression of the Nemo in LXG is that he is misanthropic. | |||
|
| Member |
I don't think of Verne's Nemo as a misanthrope, but he is an anti-hero. In the chapter where he sinks the man-of-war which attacks the Nautilus, you see this. He has set himself up as judge and avenger (his wife and children had been casualties of war (originally Polish by the Russians, but as published Indian by the British). He's more like Batman than Superman, a tragically flawed vigilante. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
|
| Junior Member |
nah it wasn't LXG, it was some super condensed graphic novel adaptation of 20,000 leagues. but i have read LXG, really good, too bad about the movie though.. so anyway, yea, what im looking for is more in line with what zmjezd illustrated, as in someone who is partial to the disadvantaged and down-trodden rather than the glorious and magnificent. | |||
|
| Member |
Sounds like some sort of commie or pinko to me.  Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
|
Member |
I am not aware of a good word to describe this. But underdogger is cited in the OED, though some of the quotations suggest use of this word for the victim, i.e. the underdog, rather than for his supporter or rescuer:
| |||
|
| Member |
1990 M. E. Kerr, Gentlehands "Uncle Louie says all Americans are infracaninophiles, and I'm a living example." 1999 Richard Bradford, Red Sky at Morning "I'll bet that some of your best friends are pachakeetos," Jimbob said. "You always were an infracaninophile." 2007 Bruce Olds, The Moments Lost "Ivan's reputation among his West Side folk was that of a soft touch and easy mark, for he temperamentally was disposed to trust people implicitly, was drawn instinctively to championing underdogs and their causes.. was by nature an infracaninophile whose generosity of spirits was nigh pelagic, and was possessed of a mind both as alert and wide-open as his heart was capacious." | |||
|
| Member |
Both infracaninophile and underdogger are rather clumsy-sounding words. the former doesn't appear in the OED though doubtless has its own pedigree, the latter has been used with rather different meanings. If pushed, I should prefer the longer but less equivocal phrase: supporter of the underdog. | |||
|
| Powered by Social Strata |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
Wordcraft Home Page Wordcraft Community Home Page Forums The Vocabulary Forum hi, does anyone know this word imlooking for?
Wordcraft Community Home Page Forums The Vocabulary Forum hi, does anyone know this word imlooking for?Copyright © 2002-12