Armada Complex

[IceQube]

What is this “armada complex”? Apparently it relates to Hobbes.

To me, however, “armada complex” sounds like a neologism by my philosophy teacher. Google searches for “armada complex” return nothing relevant.

Has anyone heard of this phrase?

[APB]

Presumably it’s a reference to Hobbes’s claim that his mother had given birth to him prematurely in 1588 on hearing the news of the Spanish Armada. Hobbes mentions this in his Latin verse autobiography. The first English translation, published in 1680, translated the relevant passage as,

My Native place I’m not asham’d to own;
Th’ill Times, and Ills born with me, I bemoan:
For Fame had rumour’d that a Fleet at Sea,
Wou’d cause our Nations Catastrophe;
And hereupon it was my Mother Dear
Did bring forth Twins at once, both Me, and Fear.
For this, my Countries Foes I e’r did hate,
With calm Peace and my Muse associate.

So a Hobbesian ‘Armada complex’ is probably either a reference to premature birth or to his habitual fearfulness. But, yes, it does sound suspiciously like a neologism.

[njtt]

To be a neologism it would have to be a single, new word, not two old ones put together. It might well be a phrase coined by your professor, but then, why shouldn’t he coin a phrase? People put words together in new ways all the time. It’s called talking.

[APB]

@njtt

To be a neologism it would have to be a single, new word, not two old ones put together.

That depends entirely on which dictionary you’re using.

@njtt

It might well be a phrase coined by your professor, but then, why shouldn’t he coin a phrase? People put words together in new ways all the time. It’s called talking.

Obviously. But it can be useful, especially in an educational context, to know whether the phrase is peculiar to the speaker or is more widely used. Which, if I’m not mistaken, is what the OP was asking. Indeed, that’s just the sort of thing a smart student ought to be asking.