Hatred is a new word in the way you use it above, as far as I know asking a question is curiosity not hatred.

Joseph, the Dutch word intrigued me, so I looked it up via online dictionaries. Funny thing is, most of the Dutch-English dictionaries didn't produce a result, so I tried Dutch-German - and that gave me the equivalent of 'disadvantaged' or 'disenfranchised'. The one Dutch-English result was 'discontent'.

Misotheism does suggest a deep aversion to religion rather than just scepticism, and while I'm not familiar with Christopher Hitchens' attitude it seems accurate to apply the term to Dawkins and his 'crusade' to prove that God doesn't exist.

Well, I was going by how Buruma defined it. Maybe it's a new usage that hasn't made it into the dictionaries yet. If it weren't for the complicated spelling, it could be a useful loan word like Schadenfreude. Regarding that term, when I first came across it, it was defined as the guilty pleasure one gets from the misfortunes of one's friends. But lately, it seems to be used as meaning pleasure in anyone's misfortunes: friend, enemy, or stranger. As a native German-speaker, do you know what the the original meaning is?

Schadenfreude literally translates as 'pleasure in harm or damage', and would apply to anyone else's misfortunes. It was always used like that, and only the English version makes it the misfortune of one's friends. Now that says something about the person who came up with the definition!

I'm still curious about the Dutch word and will check it with my friend Meta. I'm always interested in comparing literal meaning with the way a word is used.

I just looked up the etymology of monopsony and found that the word has been around since 1933 (I'd never heard it until you mentioned it). It's from the Greek mono, one and opsonia, purchases of food.

Just throwing out this site in case anyone might be interested in it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Words, words, words

Coincidentally, I have just finished reading They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases by Howard Rheingold and The Meaning of Tingo: And Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World by Adam Jacot de Boinod, both of them very funny books but not without their faults. The only so called Swedish word in the Rheingold book is definitely Norwegian, "uffda", an interjection of sympathy when somebody hurts himself. It is the opposite of Schadenfreude.

Many, if not most, of the German words and terms have their exact Swedish counterparts, one is our "skadeglädje". Like Schadenfreude this word would never be used about a friend or any nice person.

I think the English fascination with Germanic words is the Germanic system of word-formation, the easy way of making compounds from separate words and elements. The same ideas may be as well expressed in English but perhaps not always as succinctly.

Inkognito -

"Hatred is a new word in the way you use it above, as far as I know asking a question is curiosity not hatred."

I see Joseph let your comment pass, but I'm not going to.

The point about people like Richard Dawkins is that they are not "asking questions" at all about religion. They are convinced that God does not exist, and moreover that there is no need for a God; further, they would go so far as to suggest that "religion" is responsible for a large number of the ills in this world.

If a person feels that the mess that this world is in is in a large part directly due to religion, he might well hate the concept of religion.

Someone whose most recent book is called The God Delusion doesn't sound like someone who is sympathetic to religion. I think Dawkins might well describe himself as a misotheist.

Those books look interesting, Mariannese, so I put them on my Amazon shopping cart even though some of the reviews dispute their accuracy.

Thanks for the back-up, Martin. I couldn't have said it better.

A word I came across awhile ago in connection with the death of Robert Maxwell is "calenture". The OED says its literal meaning (in English) is a delusion experienced by people at sea that the water is a grassy meadow on which it's safe to take a stroll. It's from the Spanish for heat stroke. Searching the word on the Internet, I couldn't find anybody using it literally, only figuratively. Searching it on Wikipedia sends one to the article on hyperthermia.

Thanks for that link, agnespuffin. That looks like an interesting site.

I was just reading a letter from a friend who is a writer, and noticed the word "nitid." At first, I thought it to be a typo. Upon looking it up, I found it in the online "Dictionary of Difficult Words." It means "shining" or "gleaming". How many of you are familiar with it?

Not me!

I must say that I don't think it is a very pretty word. I far prefer "irridescent" or "lucent", and others. I wonder what its origins are. Is it new?

First I've heard of it. The earliest citation in the OED is dated 1656. The synonyms listed are "bright", "shining", and "glossy". It's from the Latin nitere, "to shine". I don't understand the OED's pronunciation guide so I can't tell if it's pronounced "knitted" or "knighted".

Mary 'nitid' ia new to me. I think it rhymes with 'knitted' and the Collins Dictionary describes it as poetic bright, glistening.

A word I have just heard/read for the first time was from a US cousin describing a tour of the old-fashioned gardens of Williamsburg and referring to the tour-guide as a docent.
My dictionary says it is from the German Dozent and is used in the US to mean a lecturer.
Is it an everyday word in America or is my cousin just showing off?

Vee, it is an everyday word wherever there are museums in the US. I don't have a dictionary in front of me, but in the historical areas locally, it usually means an unpaid tour guide, or lecturer. Often, volunteers perform these tasks in maritime, art, and historical museums in my part of Virginia.

Joseph, I actually remembered to ask my Dutch friend about verongelijktheid recently. She says there's no such word, which confirms the result of my internet searches! It should be ongelijktheid, and that just means 'inequality'.

Of course it's always possible that it's a brand-new word creation, but I think it is more likely that the author misunderstood.

That's odd. Buruma's father was Dutch, and he was born and educated in the Netherlands, so I would think he would know what he's talking about.

I found an e-mail address for Buruma at Bard College and sent him an inquiry. Maybe I'll hear back from him.

Ian Buruma responded:
Thanks for your email. Verongelijkt is a very Dutch adverb. It denotes
the feeling of being wronged. Verongelijktheid is a noun, not so often
used perhaps, especially in the sense of a whole society feeling
wronged. But it certainly exists and is grammatical. best wishes, Ian
Buruma

So I don't know.

Quick response! Impressive. Of course my Dutch friend has lived in England even longer than I have and may be out of touch with new developments in her mother tongue.

I've just typed the word straight into Google - rather than an online dictionary, as before - and got lots of hits, so yes, it does seem to exist!

I like to find words from other cultures for which we have no concept in our society. I was fascinated by this example from Finland, as we in the US are likely to be shot as trespassers if we wander too freely without permission on private lands...

From the Finnish: "Jokamiehenoikeus"---"The right for anyone to gather wild berries, mushrooms, flowers, to freely roam and travel the countryside, so long as you don't intrude on peoples" privacy."

What a wonderful concept. From what I understand, a similar value exists as well in Germany and the UK.