extremophile

[Laurence Horn]

On Jul 10, 2012, at 4:27 AM, W Brewer wrote:

> Getting rid of extremophile.
> Joel S. Berson: <<<Gee, there ought to be a nicely esoteric word from Greek
> that can be used with "-phile" instead of "extreme".>>>
> WB: (1) Latin: extrem-amator (extreme amateur?); (2) Greek:
> acro-phile; (3) neo-Anglo-Saxon:
> ytemest-lufiend > utmost-lover.
>
In principle "acrophile" would work, but it sounds too much like someone who specifically likes heights, maybe mountain-climbing.  But then there are extreme sports, most notably those transmitted by ESPN as "X Games" (X for "extreme").  In fact at some point in their first year or two of showing these competitions, ESPN's Bob Lee cablecast a brief interview with me (yes, I got to tour the Bristol "campus" of ESPN for the occasion) on the etymological implications of _extreme_.  I forget what I said--it was back in the previous millennium.  Anyway, if extreme sports are X Games, someone fond of extremiana can be not an extremophile but an X-phile.  (For a while, that descriptor was reserved for aficionados of the X Files, but there are none of those left, are there?)

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org