To coin a word "decorexic" to mean someone who is very keen on interior design is pretty offensive?

[BalloonSlayer]

Sunday Times style magazine, can't link to it as you have to pay now.

Woman trilling on about how she never used to be interested in decorating her house and . . . er . . . now she is . . . er . . . and that's it - for 2500 words.

Title of article - "Help! I'm DECOREXIC"

She amusingly relates how her "as yet undecorexic sister-in-law" has mocked her Alternative Flooring grey stair runner.

I mean What the Fucking FUCK?

Why? Because it sounds a bit like 'Anorexic'? FGS...

I don't think it's offensive but I think some people are making a bit of a career out of being offended and it annoys me no end. Is it just something to talk complain about?

Without the explanaition i would have assumed it would have meant someone who is unable to decorate or finds it difficult.

anorexic, dyslexic etc

Hopefully her next article is:

Help! I'm Dolexic

You are over thinking this.

"Because it sounds a bit like 'Anorexic'? "

Well yes of course.

I have known a couple of people who have suffered from Anorexia and know it's an illness I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Using the word to form a little pun to express one's compulsion to buy lots of lovely expensive things for one's house is pretty shocking. And expressing this as something for which one needs help implies some kind of comparison is being drawn.

Agree I may well be oversensitive but I'd rather be oversensitive than an insensitive airhead like the author of the article.

I'm 'GettingOutOfBedArexic'

I think the lexic in dyslexia refers to spelling/letters. Freely confess I have no idea of what it stands for in anorexic.

I mean what exic stands for.

D'oh! Wasn't overthinking that post, was I?

I may be wrong but I think the rexic means lacking in something.

I think anorexia originally meant "lacking appetite." God!

for god's sake! Yabu.

Since I am universally being told IABU, are people also OK with someone who can't make up their minds being called "Schizophrenic"? As that's another of my bugbears.

Well hang on..

.. how do you cope with "workaholic" and similarly derived words? do you over think those as well?

I think the op is a bit of a twattic

Are you just trying to get people to agree with you, BS?

I've never heard people who can't make up their minds being termed that; just indecisive.

What journals and articles are you poring through?

Seems a bit meaning less to me.

My son is dyslexic, the etymology is dys:bad and lexic:word.

Anorexia has different roots, an:without and orexia:appetite/desire

There don't seem to be very many terms with "exic/exia". The only other one I can find is cachexia, which means to be in a bad state of health, from kakos:bad and exia:habit or state.

So on a purely pedantic front this is an irritating and meaningless invention of a term as the "exic" side is commonly associated with bad things, and could be said to belittle anorexia/dyslexia.

She could more accurately describe herself as a decoraphile (or perhaps a self obsessed idiot?)

catinthehat the correlation between alcoholic and workaholic is at least consistent, as the implication is that the workaholic is excessively interested in/devoted to work to the exclusion of other interests. Although it is totally a play on alcoholic and is some ways quite meaningless. I did quite like this joke though: "My old man was a workaholic: every time he thought about work, he got drunk."

I had forgotten about "workaholic."

Hmmm.... not sure what I think about that. I guess it is ingrained in my head as something in the common vernacular.

My problem with the article is that I don't think you should make jokes about serious conditions.

LyingWitch - I didn't put the Schizophrenia example well at all, apologies. An example of the sort of thing I mean: Geri Haliwell released an album a few years ago called I think "Schizophonic" because she considered it to be a mix of different musical styles. I remember there being criticism from Mental Health charities that this was offensive and ignorant. I agree with this. I wondered what other people felt.

nooka, perhaps she meant she has an "appetite for decor" and it's quite apt after all. Although that is not the impression I got.

Reminds me of the Onion slogan: 'I'm like a chocoholic ... but for booze.'

it doesn't make sense though does it? wouldn't she be a decoholic or something

Now you know, trying it out in my head: I wouldn't have been offended and posted this if she had said "decoholic".

Hypocrite, me?

I obviously find jokes about anorexia far more upsetting than jokes about alcoholism. I wonder why?

Oh well, happy to be U.

Has been an interesting and thought-provoking discussion - for me at any rate.

I would have thought it more apt to say decophilic and decophobic. Or does that indicate a love/hate relationship with the number ten?

decAphilic decAphobic prolly

(for 10)