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I realize it isn’t the most important thing, but I wish more outlets would style it antisemitism, all lowercase, no hyphen. To do otherwise implies the existence of something called “Semitism”, which isn’t really helpful!
I don’t blame any individual writers or editors for this. I’ve seen it changed in interviews I’ve done because “anti-Semitism” was the house style wherever. But it is something worth pushing back on, I think.
The word isn’t one we picked out. It was popularized by a German antisemite in the 19th century as a “more scientific” replacement for the popular term of the time, Judenhaß (Jew-hatred).
This is why it’s a weird term, since Jews are obviously not the only Semitic people. But the compound word has always had a very specific meaning of hating Jews, and there’s no need to hyphenate it. (The Germans didn’t, obviously; they LOVE a long unhyphenated word.)
Wikipedia actually has a really great section on the etymology! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism#Origin_and_usage https://twitter.com/ourladyofcoffee/status/1275531578601504777?s=21 https://twitter.com/ourladyofcoffee/status/1275531578601504777
hahaha I mean it's a reasonable leap of logic! Any other anti- thing with a hyphen in English is specifically referring to being against an existing concept. The fact that 'Semitism' by itself doesn't exist makes this a huge outlier. https://twitter.com/buknerd/status/1275536185490898944
