The poor use of "Androgynous"

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A time or two I have come across this situation in reading stories:

"A male character in a book who is described as a guy looking like another guy someone in the story knows, but then is said to be androgynous and having mistaken that particular man for the man they know."

To simplify the fact the this above person has mistaken one man for another man feels like an incorrect way to use the word. The problem being androgynous is a word defined to describe a man who looks like a woman or a woman who looks like a man. Shouldn't this kind of issue be described differently?
 
John_Owl

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Indeed it should. Androgynous does indeed mean that someone looks like they could be either way. tomboy with small breasts, short hair, and wearing pants (in a situation where women would be wearing skirts, such as school anime) would be androgynous. A man looking like a different man would be closer to doppleganger than androgynous.
 
BearlyAlive

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Androgynous is pretty much what certain tagging people would call Tomboy/Tomgirl or (Reverse) Trap.

CharlesEBrown said:
Suspect they meant Anonymous or something like that instead of Androgynous.
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Ambiguous? Like they might be that person, but you aren't sure.
 
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BearlyAlive said:
Androgynous is pretty much what certain tagging people would call Tomboy/Tomgirl or (Reverse) Trap.


Ambiguous? Like they might be that person, but you aren't sure.
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That could also be. Or maybe they were waffling between the terms and struck on a third one that was completely wrong. I know I did that a few times when I was just getting started writing.
 
ACertainPassingUser

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Another example of proper androgynous male, a male that also look feminimely beautiful. Yet people still subconsciously aware that they're male from appearance, without need for explanation.

Unlike "trap" male that totally look like female without proper info and knowledge about them.
 
BLIGHT_ZERO

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ACertainPassingUser said:
Another example of proper androgynous male, a male that also look feminimely beautiful. Yet people still subconsciously aware that they're male from appearance, without need for explanation.

Unlike "trap" male that totally look like female without proper info and knowledge about them.
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Scary Shiny Glasses - TV Tropes

time to use my trap card∼
 
TheMonotonePuppet

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Swordy said:
A time or two I have come across this situation in reading stories:

"A male character in a book who is described as a guy looking like another guy someone in the story knows, but then is said to be androgynous and having mistaken that particular man for the man they know."

To simplify the fact the this above person has mistaken one man for another man feels like an incorrect way to use the word. The problem being androgynous is a word defined to describe a man who looks like a woman or a woman who looks like a man. Shouldn't this kind of issue be described differently?
Click to expand...
Yeah... I've seen "androgynous" over-used recently myself. They use "androgynous" to describe the entire individual and then undercut it by describing every characteristic of the individual either very characteristically masculine or feminine characters.

Not only that, but I've seen it overused just in general. While the adjective is usable in a variety of manners, thus giving its use quite a bit of leeway, it has more impact when used sparingly. To give a few examples of words that could have and should have replaced it, words like "neutral", "unique", "original", "innovative", "alien", "ethereal", and "distinctly removed from classical gendered human beauty standards" (that last one was thrown in for the shits and giggles of a funnily overly long example).

For me, androgyny is decidedly a beautiful characteristic, and I think for a lot of other people, they agree. That's why it loses its luster if people keep using it for every hot character. And sadly, that's also why it gets overused.
 
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