"Homosexual" - a word testing the linguistic aesthetic taste

Words always succeed the event. New words are invented to refer to the things and events that have come into being and influence our life.

The word "homosexual" was translated from German and entered English in 1892, to describe a person sexually attracted to a person of the same sex. A little later to the introduction of the word "homosexual", a trial accusing Oscar Wilde for sodomy was the talk of the town, and I think this new word must have been used in the trial.

H. Havelock Ellis (1859 - 1939), a physician and a writer who studied human sexuality, expressed his abhorrence to this new word. He said in his book:

'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it. It is, however, convenient, and now widely used. 'Homegenic' has been suggested as a substitute. (H. Havelock Ellis, "Studies in Psychology" 1897)

I am sure Oscar Wilde, an aesthete who had "found it harder and harder every day to live up to his blue china", would have shared the same revulsion to the word 'homosexual' when he heard it used in his trial. The word 'sodomy', with its biblical origin, would have suited Wilde's taste far more than the newly invented word in describing his sexual orientation.

How come the word 'homosexual' is barbarously hybrid?

 'Homo' comes from Greek and 'sexual' is Latin origin. 

You might think, 'is that all?!' but I highly recognize the aesthetic taste of Ellis; fusing things of different origin is like eating strawberry jam on rice. Agh!

Japanese, too, are not so sensitive to this kind of linguistic aesthetic taste. From our earliest history, we are so used to adopting and adapting words and letters from foreign languages. There are even some words that have become so familiar in our vocabulary that not many think that it has a foreign origin.

'Tempura-don' is a name of a typical and popular Japanese dish, and it has tempura on a bowl of rice. The word 'tempura' comes from Spanish word 'tempero', and I think not many Japanese people would know that, and '-don' is a short form of 'domburi' which means 'a bowl' in Japanese.

'Tempura-don' is actually an amalgamate word of Spanish and Japanese. 

I bet Ellis and Wilde would have abhorred the word.