etymological fallacy. Thanks. I sensed there was such a thing, but wasn't aware of the term and its currency. I think I'll use it, hopefully without committing it. Dropping the term early on in a discussion of a word's etymology might flush out anyone who will concede no possibility of fallacy in his thinking. Guessing and play-rationalizing are more fun among humble folks.
I'm familiar with the etymological fallacy (though it is more often applied to modern misunderstandings of ancient words). However, I wasn't aware that 'anonym' actually had a usage yet. I thought it was just a made up word, in which case all I had to go on is the lexical meaning of its component parts, which I think was the definition someone gave, wasn't it? I wasn't making the etymological fallacy - that is to ignore the meaning that a word has come to have apart from or despite the history of its formation from other words. I just doubted that the word is used at all.
And just for the record, I was wrong about something once before - that was the time I thought I was wrong but it turned out I was right all along!
