Keyrings

[hazel]

What is the technical term for keyring collectors?

[Quizmonster]

Most such terms are made up from real or 'pretend' Greek root-words. On that basis, how about 'kleididaktyliophile'? That comes from the Greek words for 'key', 'ring' and 'lover of'.

[xyzzy@bok]

no QM, dactyl is fingers; you want krikos; ring and cleis [or cleidos] for key and for collector, i got selektis; so maybe, cleiskrikoselektist as well :-)

[Quizmonster]

Dear Xyz, according to the OED, 'daktylos' is a finger whilst 'daktylios' is a finger-ring, such as a wedding-band. As that's much the same kind of 'ring' as the one involved in holding keys, I feel justified in using it. We're agreed on 'kleidos' (anglicised as 'cleidos'), so that's good. In general, collectors are usually some sort of 'phile', as in stamp-collector = philatelist.

Having said all that, I haven't the faintest idea whether there already exists a word that keyring-collectors themselves accept as their descriptor! Until I see it, though, I'm going to stick with my version, though I love yours, too. Cheers

[xyzzy@bok]

Like a dog with a rabbit ever faithful, you undeterredly stick to your guns with a hint that you would concede if ever wrong. Perish the thought. Fair play, QM. I concede to your higher knowledge. :-)

[Quizmonster]

Dear Xyz, I'm sure that, to any real Greek-speaker, both our words are on a par with that old phrase: "English as she is spoke"! That was, apparently, the title created by a Spanish teacher who wanted to produce a book about English. Sadly, he didn't actually know any English, though he was familiar with French and had a Spanish/French dictionary and a French/English one. This double leap-in-the-dark produced some wonderful errors.

In other words, we're probably both writing nonsense. However, I personally just love answering these 'phobia' and 'philia' questions with some concoction or other. Clearly, you do, too...and good luck to the pair of us, I say! Cheers

[hazel]

I know that I am answering my own question but I also emailed a couple of keyring or keychain collectors at the same time as posting the question. I also had some idea of the answer as I had heard it years ago in a magazine (I think) but we had never managed to get it confirmed. I couldn't remember the spelling but had an inkling. One of the reply to the collector site replied "Simply put, a COPOCLEPHOLOGIST is a person who collects or is an expert on keychains. His hobby or study would be COPOCLEPHOLOGY." What do you think of thios then?

[Battydawn]

Copperkleppologists