Emic + etic = emetic

From: Nick Brooke (D&T CAS) <"Nick>
Date: 19 Mar 96 09:55:40 EST



Steve writes:

> I don't even know what etic and emic mean. I tried looking them up
> in a friends massive dictionary, and they weren't listed.

AFAIK, 'emic' means from a viewpoint internal to a culture, while 'etic' is external. So a "What my Father Told Me" or "What the Priest Says" article is emic, while a typical "God Learnerish" cult writeup, monomyth, argument about the nature of magic, etc. would be etic. But it *could* be the other way around...

Anyway, these words seem to be part of anthropology-speak, and John Hughes (our self-confessed "anthropowanker") is the only chap on this list who's fluent in that language. In order to use the words successfully, he has to define them every time he uses them, which I find rather amusing...

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