# Mind Your P's and Q's **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 7, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344 "2012-06-07T02:02:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344/21 "2012-08-30T18:15:07Z")
> [@cynyc](#): > > Empathetic. (Empathy.) Drives me crazy. What the hell is wrong with empathic? Who turned it into a version of emphasize or pathetic. As noted, this is derived from an incorrect parallel with “sympathetic”. > [@Powers](#): > > Yet you don’t complain that it’s ‘sympathetic’ instead of ‘sympathic’? Because “sympathetic” comes from the Greek sumpathetikos, so is correct. [crap, formatting didn’t keep] > **[sympathetic](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/sympathetic)** > > Definition, Synonyms, Translations of sympathetic by The Free Dictionary ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344/22 "2012-08-31T15:55:29Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Because “sympathetic” comes from the Greek sumpathetikos, so is correct. [crap, formatting didn’t keep] > > [Sympathetic - definition of sympathetic by The Free Dictionary](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sympathetic) I didn’t say “sympathetic” was incorrect. Are you saying that the “pathy” in sympathy has a different derivation than the “pathy” in empathy? Don’t they both come from “pathos”, meaning ‘feeling’? Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344/23 "2012-08-31T18:15:54Z")
It would seem that way to me. But I’m just looking in the “derivations” stuff in online dictionaries. Someone with better info could provide a better answer as to why sympathy has sympatheticos and thus sympathetic, but empathy does not have empatheticos and thus empathetic. Perhaps sympathy is a much older word than empathy? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344/24 "2012-08-31T18:17:00Z")
I thought it stood for “mind your Penises and Qunts”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344/25 "2012-08-31T21:35:06Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > It would seem that way to me. But I’m just looking in the “derivations” stuff in online dictionaries. Someone with better info could provide a better answer as to why sympathy has sympatheticos and thus sympathetic, but empathy does not have empatheticos and thus empathetic. > > Perhaps sympathy is a much older word than empathy? Much older and with a totally different history. From [Etymonline.com](http://Etymonline.com) > [@](#): > > empathy (n.) > 1903, from Ger. Einfühlung (from ein “in” + Fühlung “feeling”), coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Gk. empatheia “passion, state of emotion,” from en “in” (see en- (2)) + pathos “feeling” (see pathos). A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer’s ability to project his personality into the viewed object. > > empathic > 1909, from empathy + -ic. Related: Empathically. > > empathetic > 1932, in psychology, from empathy on model of sympathetic and to distinguish it from empathic. Related: Empathetically. > [@](#): > > sympathy > 1570s, “affinity between certain things,” from [M.Fr](http://M.Fr). sympathie, from L.L. sympathia “community of feeling, sympathy,” from Gk. sympatheia, from sympathes “having a fellow feeling, affected by like feelings,” from syn- “together” + pathos “feeling” (see pathos). In English, almost a magical notion at first; e.g. in reference to medicines that heal wounds when applied to a cloth stained with blood from the wound. Meaning “conformity of feelings” is from 1590s; sense of “fellow feeling” is first attested 1660s. An O.E. loan-translation of sympathy was efensargung. > > sympathetic > 1640s, “pertaining to sympathy,” from Mod.L. sympatheticus, from Gk. sympathetikos, from sympathein, from sympathes “having a fellow feeling, affected by like feelings” (see sympathy). Meaning “having fellow feeling” is recorded from 1718. In anatomical sense, the word is attested from 1769, from Mod.L. (nervus) sympathicus, coined by Jacques-Benigne Winslow (1669-1760), Danish anatomist living in Paris. Related: Sympathetically. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344/26 "2012-09-06T23:42:00Z")
Okay, so “empathy” comes from the Greek “empatheia”, while “sympathy” comes from the Greek “sympatheia”. Both use the root “pathos”, meaning “feeling”. In the 17th century, someone decided we needed an adjectival form of “sympathy” and reached back to the Latin and Greek to find ‘sympathetikos’/’-cus’ and create “sympathetic”. In the 20th century, someone decided we needed an adjectival form of “empathy” and just added the usual “-c” suffix: “empathic”. A few years later, someone decided that if the Greeks had needed such a word they would have used “empathetikos” and thus coined “empathetic”. I don’t see any grounds here for calling “empathetic” wrong in any way, just because it’s 13 years younger than “empathic”. Powers &8^] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-and-qs/624344.md?page=1)