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English is weird
LTK:
Doesn't the word 'heteronormative' have exactly the opposite meaning when you parse it etymologically? (Hetero, Greek Heteros, "other, another, different"; normative, "pertaining to a norm")
pwhodges:
What do you expect it to mean? It refers to the idea that having relations with the other sex is normal.
LTK:
That'd be heterosexual normativity, but without the 'sex' part I'd expect it to mean "different than pertaining to the norm".
pwhodges:
I suppose there is a possible conflict between the combination of the terms meaning "other is normal" and "other than normal"; but such conflicts in the use of negative terms (which do survive in real language, though an example doesn't immediately come to mind) are resolved by usage, which in this case is clear-cut. And the use of the abbreviated term in the sexual context is normal, too, as the OED records.
Zingoleb:
But etymologically speaking, they would still be correct in their original deconstruction, no?
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