I thought you were ranting against those who expect to discover that for every thing there's a single word and who believe that somehow the word is always superior to the description; when in fact (as you now make clear) you are ranting against a tendency not to accept a nominal phrase instead of a single word—something quite different, and something I have not actually noticed. Perhaps I am not very observant.
and I'm not seeing a difference between those two. isn't the tendency not to accept the phrase what drives the need for a single word?
I'm referring to the difference between a nominal and descriptive phrase.
Take
outgroup homogeneity bias. Clearly, it is a phrase. It is nominal because it can be found in reference works. A descriptive phrase would be its definition: "a tendency for individuals to see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups."
There are better examples.
You know, I'm still a little astonished by this thread. Is zmjezhd, with the bootlicking approval of tsuwm, really surprised that people come to a forum called Wordsmith, ancillary to an A-Word-A-Day email service, and want to ask about words? Not simply advocating that we enlarge the scope of discussion to include other areas of language, mind you, but actually "ranting" against people for using the board for the very purpose it was designed for.
I think some of the old timers are getting disgruntled.
