Language and linguistic forms are a playground for all the ideologies that meet at a time when Wokism claims to shape the world through speech. But the flaw of neology at all costs is a major political fact. The failure of the proposal of the word "Francocide" is an illustration of the liveliness of the language that has nothing to do with the political will to shape it or to recover it, and just as the failure of inclusive writing will be explained by the resistance of speaking subjects to the imposition of standards that are not understood, so the reactivation of cultivated etymological forms is understood by the mechanics specific to the history not of words, but of language itself.. And in this area, the University has things to say.
When we approach the question of words ending in "cide", we should perhaps start by eliminating some preconceived ideas. Indeed, cultivated readers naturally connect these forms to an ancient composition where they believe they are reactivating a Latin verbal form. But the form " caedera » which generates by its conjugation the suffix «-cide» is already in composition in the Latin verb « western » (Italian: « kill ", old French: " kill »); and the form « -cida » Latin is already a suffixal derivative found in Latin terms such as "homicida" (borrowing from Latin "homicide", 1200, Romance of Thebes) as " fratricidal » (borrowing from Latin, borrowing from Latin, French, 1200, « fratricide »), « matricida » (borrowing from Latin, French “matricide”, 1605).
In other words, the sense of composition that exists in the reception of words ending in "-cide", which is very active among French speakers, is an illusion of a cultured person. The semantics at work in the abundant productivity of the word is very modern, as the recent history of the word "suicide" attests.
"Suicide" is for example a "very French" word that caused controversy in the 18th century. Little used, it entered the vocabulary to designate self-destructive action. We know the joke of Racine's son who said that this word very ugly "could only designate a butcher's shop" by playing on the prefix "sui-" which he jokingly links to " suis ", pork instead of " on », reflexive pronoun (“oneself”). In doing so, he mocks the archaic pretension of this lexical compound, which seems pedantic and improper in his time. This witticism nevertheless illustrates two things: the lexical trajectory of this neology which is always pseudo-learned and the opaque nature of the meaning of the root of the word. This is particularly true for “suicide”, where we can clearly see that the root of the reflexive pronoun is so opaque to the French that they have derived the intransitive use of the verb (“I suicide” and cannot “suicide” anyone other than myself) to a reflexive form: “ se suicider » which may seem redundant from a Latinist point of view but is absolutely not for the French. In doing so, they introduced the idea that the verb « suicider » could admit an object (a direct object), to the point that today it is accepted that one can, in the context of an « assisted suicide », « commit suicide » by an « active aid to die » in the euphemistic context of « euthanasia » (Greek: « happy death »). We therefore understand here that in reality the only meaning of the word « suicider » in French is « kill », with a connotation reviewsOr logical or inevitable; a bit like if in French there were three ways of approaching the question of murder: the incomprehensible murder: "assassinater"; the abstract murder, possibly accidental: "tuer"; and the explicable, compassionate or logical murder: "(su)-icider". We can therefore see that it is quite natural to dissociate the etymological form, just, from the way in which the word is understood by the speaking subjects.
It is therefore not surprising that a quick survey of a few students shows that for many, the semantic etymology of this family of words is not in Latin, but in the French "suhere / homhere " In other words, French speakers do not know Latin. caedera " but they connect, deduce the meaning from their knowledge of how these two words work. Which is not entirely surprising, since these two words are among the oldest in the series. The connection is not semantic, but phonetic: it is by phonetic resemblance that they associate these words (it is a meaningful paronomasia). In other words, even if they are unaware of the etymological meaning of the word, they deduce from the existence of "suhere » or « homhere " a semantic relationship that they remotivate.
What is striking is that this semantic remotivation is not done on the legitimate suffix "-cide" but on a form that is certainly false but relevant: "-icide ».
This is why many identify "feminicide, reghere, thehere, insecthere, childhere » as being familiar; but that all invalidate « *kittencide (but tolerate "feline"here "), *dogcide (but tolerate "canhere »), *Swedishcide (harder for "svédhere ")" for example. And when asked about membership in morphological classes, everyone recognizes that the word "genocide " on its side belongs to a unique and exceptional class that one could not include in the same family as the other words which could however share the same suffix. This is because in reality the suffix identified is not the etymological form in "-cide » but a purely French form in « –here"
This particularity of an active semantic neology explains the error of the proposal made of a neologism like "francocide " for example, which does not respect the popular composition, just as "*muslimcide" would not work or "judeocide" did not work (This word, created by Arno Joseph Mayer, "is never really acclimatized [in France]"[1]). Let's bet that "francisside" for example could have worked in another context.
Finally, a final relevant feature for this lexical series is its cultural trajectory: words ending in "-icide" are learned neologies that originate from cultivated circles (science: "insecticides, vermicides"; law: "infanticide"; philosophy: "deicide") and then drift into popular circles. This is not the case for all neologies: we know the success of popular creations such as "quoicoubé" or "meuf" for example. It is therefore a pseudo-learned lexical series connoted in its uses by the high register. In reality, words ending in "-icide" therefore belong to a learned vocabulary, used as such to characterize a serious discourse and whose only meaning derives from the incomprehension of the root "suicider" which today only means a way of "killing" characterized by an affect. This is particularly evident in the "success" of the terms "infanticides, feminicides" which, although devoid of any relevant semantic basis for the speaking subjects, characterize murders "that affect the family", that is to say "ways of killing" characterized by an affect: love or monstrosity. Thus, infanticide is the murder characterized by the absolute antinomic affect: "killing the one who depends on the benevolence of all", logical proof of an irrefutable and indisputable monstrosity that makes sense; the same for "feminicide" where the question of sex absolutely does not play a role: for the people questioned since the only semantic trait that characterizes "feminicide" is the "conjugal, or couple" trait, id est the murder of the one we are supposed to love. This explains the imposture of the debate around this term: the media attribute a high sexual and gender value to it while people understand a matrimonial and civil value (murder of the wife, not of the woman).
In other words, the success of the words in the series ending in "-icide" applied to human anime ("regicide, infanticide, femicide") is absolutely based on the logical and indisputable relationship to an affect, or even to a passion, much more than to a political or civil object. This is what probably explains the vagueness that surrounds in the current political debate the discussions around "femicide" where everyone agrees while discussing that the notion is unfounded as "murder of a woman because she is a woman" while everyone reacts favorably to the idea of a specificity of "murder of a wife", that is, someone for whom one feels or has felt a passion. We could extend this reflection to the success of the use of these words applied to non-humans: "herbicide, insecticide, vermicide". The idea of "murder" although etymologically supposed to be active is absolutely not perceived negatively by the speaking subjects, quite the contrary. In reality, we are returning to the definition previously mentioned of a "lethal action provoked by an affect" justifying it, excusing it or making it understandable. Thus, it is legitimate to save one's garden or plantations; to kill an insect that is threatening or perceived as such, etc. In all cases, death is administered in a framework that makes it not excusable, but inevitable and logical, even acceptable. The proof? Advertisers use it and people buy it.
The predominant seme in the series in "-icide" is therefore that of an administration of death in a relevant emotional framework and logical. We "commit suicide to our patient" out of compassion; we kill a child "because we are an absolute monster", this is the irrefutable and absolute proof of a monstrosity; we kill a wife in the context of passion - literature is full of examples that have prepared this lexical framework. Similarly, we administer nature through death in a logical framework of survival. It is a learned neology that in reality popular circles have seized upon. The success of neologies can here be predicted by the respect of a popular root in "-icide" (and not in "cide") and by the insertion of a relevant and logical affective framework. The morphological class of the word "genocide", a word with a single copy, cannot admit valid neologies.
