Timeline for Word for a lighthouse enthusiast
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 8, 2014 at 22:31 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @ermanen: To be honest, I don't think there is a "right answer" here. OP asked for a word to describe someone who likes or studies lighthouses. I'm sure most people would agree -phile = one who likes, and -ologist = one who studies. Personally, I'd say I'm an audiophile, but I'm certainly not an audiologist. I suppose if OP would like to clarify exactly what he is thinking of, we might be better able to say one of our two offerings is better than the other. But the key point is any credible answer more or less has to be a derivative of pharos. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 22:22 | comment | added | ermanen | @Fumble: Then I'm helping you I guess :) I'm not saying your answer is wrong also. But we couldn't be sure about the right answer because of the lack of sources. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 22:19 | comment | added | ermanen | @Jon: I think, that sense is a bit different than this. It is about birdwatching and amateur science. How about if you are enthusiastic about birds in general? Though ornithophilia comes to mind but it is a bit risky word and it is used in botany also. Maybe it is better to say "bird enthusiast". So in the end, there is this confusion about meanings that -logist cover. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 22:18 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @ermanen: I didn't intend my revision to be seen as a reaction to your answer. I really did break off to eat after posting pharologist - at which time I had every intention of mentioning pharophile, for exactly the reasons you've given. For reasons that escape me, GB is sensitive to whether single-word search terns are "quotated", and it lists many results where you can't actually see the search word, so they may be lies anyway. In fact, I only saw 10 actual instances of the word pharologist in my results (and 1 pharophile), but it was still claiming 797 hits after 20 pages. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 22:05 | comment | added | Jon Hanna | @ermanen, such a pattern can be confusing, but it is still is found, with e.g. ornithologist covering the amateur birdwatcher and the professional researcher. In the days of the gentleman scientist, such a distinction was less rigid in any case, which perhaps had an effect. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 22:04 | comment | added | ermanen | Darn this 5 min comment editing rule. I meant result for "pharologist" (not pharaologist). | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 21:59 | comment | added | ermanen | Secondly, using pharologist for both the enthusiast and the one who studies it scientifically is a bit confusing. I don't know why some sources mention that and how it turned out that way. Pharophile makes more sense for the enthusiast. For example, there is a difference between audiophile and audiologist also. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 21:57 | comment | added | ermanen | @Fumble: As you mentioned about my answer then I'm going to talk about yours. First of all, you should check the number of Google result carefully, Google doesn't reveal the actual number till the last result and it mixes up with "pharology" if you don't put the word in quotes. Actual result for pharaologist is 23(?). In the end, both pharologist an pharophile is not that common. [to be continued] | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 21:42 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 8, 2014 at 21:35 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Tom: I only knew what to search for in the first place because of the ancient Greek lighthouse on Pharos. Having checked the etymology I'm now unsure whether to say the "origin" is Greek or Latin. So I'll amend the answer to include what seems relevant from OED - if anyone's interested, they can make their own decision starting from that information. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 21:28 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 8, 2014 at 21:25 | comment | added | Tom Au | "Phare" is the French, and probably Latin word for Lighthouse, so this makes sense. | |
| Jun 8, 2014 at 20:06 | vote | accept | Seamus | ||
| Jun 8, 2014 at 17:25 | history | answered | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 3.0 |