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I think "antisocial" is commonly misinterpreted as "asocial". As you've pointed out antisocial does not mean "not social", it means "against society".
by imustbeevil 9y ago
I think "antisocial" is commonly misinterpreted as "asocial". As you've pointed out antisocial does not mean "not social", it means "against society".
- amelius 9y agoI think it is the other way around: asocial being commonly misinterpreted as antisocial.
- imustbeevil 9y agoThe "a" prefix means "not". The "anti" prefix means "against". Take apathy and antipathy. Asexual vs antisexual. Areligious vs antireligious. The definitions of these prefixes are exact and consistent.
- amelius 9y agoYes, so when somebody says "stop making noise, you're asocial" then they mean "antisocial".
- imustbeevil 9y agoIf anyone ever said that then yes. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=antisocial,asocial https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=antisocial,asocia...
- amelius 9y agoThat's number of queries. The interesting thing is that the numbers of search results seem to be reversed.
- baddox 9y agoStill works for the common usage of “antisocial” if you think of it as “against personally engaging in social activity” instead of “against society.”