"Incel" etymology: Difference between revisions

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==Polyseme==
==Polyseme==
The most common criticism of the term "incel" is the suggestion that its unabbreviated form is a misnomer or oxymoron. These critics argue that it is a misnomer because "celibacy" is by definition voluntary. For example a veggie burger at first glance seems to be contradictory since burgers by definition have meat. But does that mean we should go to fast food joints and deride them for bludgeoning the English language if they sell veggie burgers? The counter-argument to this criticism is that words can have multiple senses. Although it is true that "celibacy" usually refers to a voluntary (or volitional) act, lexical semantic fields such as homonyms and polysemes prove that a single word can have multiple meanings. The former refers to words with the same spelling but unrelated meanings, the latter to same spellings with similar meanings. The term "incel" is derived from the non-volitional sense of "celibacy". As such, the term incel is a hyponym of a polyseme of the most common usage of the term celibacy.
The most common criticism of the term "incel" is the suggestion that its unabbreviated form is a misnomer, misconstruction or oxymoron. These critics argue that it is a misnomer because "celibacy" is by definition voluntary. For example a veggie burger at first glance seems to be contradictory since burgers by definition have meat. But does that mean we should go to fast food joints and deride them for bludgeoning the English language if they sell veggie burgers? The counter-argument to this criticism is that words can have multiple senses. Although it is true that "celibacy" usually refers to a voluntary (or volitional) act, lexical semantic fields such as homonyms and polysemes prove that a single word can have multiple meanings. The former refers to words with the same spelling but unrelated meanings, the latter to same spellings with similar meanings. The term "incel" is derived from the non-volitional sense of "celibacy". As such, the term incel is a hyponym of a polyseme of the most common usage of the term celibacy.


===Protologisms===
===Protologisms===

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