tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post2506541003271506404..comments2024-03-27T20:34:09.464+01:00Comments on zmkc: Self Centredzmkchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-47198434106787024982016-12-24T13:56:30.704+01:002016-12-24T13:56:30.704+01:00There are words - and I think 'exogamous' ...There are words - and I think 'exogamous' is one of them - where it is actually clearer to use a phrase than the single word that wraps up their meaning. Most of the words I feel this about tend to be Latin or Greek derivatives, I think. So, if I'd been talking I'd have said, "People who generally choose partners from outside their own group", because then I'd know everyone listening would understand what I was talking about.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-48452127374001991272016-12-22T15:03:57.962+01:002016-12-22T15:03:57.962+01:00I first encountered "exogamous" (or mayb...I first encountered "exogamous" (or maybe "exogamy") in something of Ortega y Gasset's about forty years ago. More recently I found "exogamic" in Anthony Burgess's memoir <i>Little Wilson and Big God</i>, Chapter Six: "a sound exogamic instinct".<br /><br />Now, I understand that citing Burgess as precendent is no convincing defense to the charge of showing off. As for Ortega y Gasset, I have no idea what the Spanish might have been--have no idea, really, what the essay was in which it occurred (there may have been Romans in it). And I doubt I have used the word in conversation in about forty years, and then it was while bantering with a friend.<br /><br />On the other hand, what better expression comes to mind? One can speak of the "endogamous", or anyway their offspring, as "inbred", and there are expressions such as "marrying the girl next door" or "marrying one's high school sweetheart." But for the opposite case, I can't think of one.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.com