I had supposed it was a straw man argument, but it seems you actually do think morphology works like that. I don't see how you could, as you can see immediately from the preceding sentence that "straw man" refers to a thing you don't have if you just look up "straw" and "man" in the OED and mash them together, expecting all words or phrases composed of morphemes to have meaning fully determined. A "crackpot," I don't know what on earth that has to do with busted cookware. "Ambidextrous" does not mean you have two right hands.
As to the semantic content of derivation, the best you can say is that the modification of meaning given by adding a refix prefix is sometimes predictable. Given two obscure words "cisalpine" and "cismontaine" we have two obscure data points. It is, indeed, unreasonable to expect two data points to make a rule, especially when hardly anyone has encountered the words. "Transsexual," "transgender" and chemical "cis/trans," on the other hand, actually exist in people's minds (at least those of the neologizing crowd.)
As you alluded to it elsewhere: 'cislunar' also derived from 'translunar' via the 'cis/trans' analogy to chemistry and not by applying the 'cis' entry in the OED. 'On the same side of moon' makes just as much or little sense as 'on the same side of gender.' WHAT is on the same side of moon? Moon's a three dimensional object, who gets to privilege binary 'sides' and I don't see which side is specified in the OED entries? The side facing the earth, REALLY? Et cetera.
We assign words as shorter mnmemonics to larger concepts. Expecting all morphemes to adhere in a determined relation and morphology to support fully general semantics is pointless; one might as well go around saying "gender and sexual identities aligned according to the generally constructed identification" because without the opportunity to leave something out via mnemonic there can never be a word to capture that actual meaning.
You object, as far as I can tell, that "on the same side of gender" leaves something out. But that's the whole point of having a word to refer to a concept.
1. There's no particular reason to think that noun phrases such as 'straw man' and 'crack[ed ]pot' should obey the same rules as nouns combined with established and well-defined prefixes. Or will you seriously claim that I shouldn't expect to be able to derive the meaning of 'microscope' from micro- and scope? 2. Even if there were, the etymology of those is pretty clear from their individual definitions ('pot' is well attested as a slang term for head or brain, as is 'dexter' for adept rather than stictly right hand). 3. Even if they weren't, the mere fact that things have been done badly in the past is no argument for doing them badly in the present and future. 4. The data points don't make the rule, they simply support that the prefix as used in English (which is admittedly rarely) consistently has the meaning given by the OED for the prefix and the meaning one expects from the Latin. 5. It is absurd1 to suggest that cislunar is somehow derived from translunar by analogy to chemistry. 'Cislunar', like 'cisalpine', simply means 'on the same side of the moon [as the speaker]'. It happens that all of the speakers involved in the orbital planning are on the same side of the moon as each other, so it happens that no ambiguity arises; if they weren't, it would. 6. My objection has nothing to do with 'leav[ing] something out'. The moon, like the Alps, has sides, and one can be reasonably said to be on the same or opposite side of it as another. Gender can in no reasonably-conceivable sense be so said. Even if it did, the term 'cisgender' would be meaningless as used and would only make any kind of sense to describe someone who is on the "same side of gender" (whatever that would mean in this strange hypothetical universe) as the speaker is, which is clearly not the sense intended by its advocates (nor one of any real use whatsoever).
(The chemical use of the terms (and para-/ortho-/meta-, and R/S, and others) arises only from chemistry's unpleasant obsession with the anthropomorphizing of atoms, and it's a serious mistake to try and reason by analogy therefrom without considering this fact. It's also worth pointing out that IUPAC has deperecated the use of cis/trans terminology partially for this reason and prefers the German E/Z (entgegen/zusammen) notation, which is much more rigorous.)
1 Of course, the mere fact that it is absurd doesn't necessarily mean that it's not true, but it does mean that I (reasonably) won't believe you without a credible source. If you do have one (people have been known to do absurd things), I'll refer you to point #3.
"according to the generally constructed identification" and "not according to the generally constructed identification" don't count as "sides"? Why on earth not?
Even if it did, the term 'cisgender' would be meaningless as used and would only make any kind of sense to describe someone who is on the "same side of gender" (whatever that would mean in this strange hypothetical universe) as the speaker is
The location of "Cisalpine Gaul" does not change depending on whether or not you're in Germany or Sicily. It is always on the same side of the Alps as Rome, which everyone in the Latin-speaking world was capable of recognizing as a privileged frame of reference. Using cultural context to help assign meaning is just really not that difficult.
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As to the semantic content of derivation, the best you can say is that the modification of meaning given by adding a refix prefix is sometimes predictable. Given two obscure words "cisalpine" and "cismontaine" we have two obscure data points. It is, indeed, unreasonable to expect two data points to make a rule, especially when hardly anyone has encountered the words. "Transsexual," "transgender" and chemical "cis/trans," on the other hand, actually exist in people's minds (at least those of the neologizing crowd.)
As you alluded to it elsewhere: 'cislunar' also derived from 'translunar' via the 'cis/trans' analogy to chemistry and not by applying the 'cis' entry in the OED. 'On the same side of moon' makes just as much or little sense as 'on the same side of gender.' WHAT is on the same side of moon? Moon's a three dimensional object, who gets to privilege binary 'sides' and I don't see which side is specified in the OED entries? The side facing the earth, REALLY? Et cetera.
We assign words as shorter mnmemonics to larger concepts. Expecting all morphemes to adhere in a determined relation and morphology to support fully general semantics is pointless; one might as well go around saying "gender and sexual identities aligned according to the generally constructed identification" because without the opportunity to leave something out via mnemonic there can never be a word to capture that actual meaning.
You object, as far as I can tell, that "on the same side of gender" leaves something out. But that's the whole point of having a word to refer to a concept.
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2. Even if there were, the etymology of those is pretty clear from their individual definitions ('pot' is well attested as a slang term for head or brain, as is 'dexter' for adept rather than stictly right hand).
3. Even if they weren't, the mere fact that things have been done badly in the past is no argument for doing them badly in the present and future.
4. The data points don't make the rule, they simply support that the prefix as used in English (which is admittedly rarely) consistently has the meaning given by the OED for the prefix and the meaning one expects from the Latin.
5. It is absurd1 to suggest that cislunar is somehow derived from translunar by analogy to chemistry. 'Cislunar', like 'cisalpine', simply means 'on the same side of the moon [as the speaker]'. It happens that all of the speakers involved in the orbital planning are on the same side of the moon as each other, so it happens that no ambiguity arises; if they weren't, it would.
6. My objection has nothing to do with 'leav[ing] something out'. The moon, like the Alps, has sides, and one can be reasonably said to be on the same or opposite side of it as another. Gender can in no reasonably-conceivable sense be so said. Even if it did, the term 'cisgender' would be meaningless as used and would only make any kind of sense to describe someone who is on the "same side of gender" (whatever that would mean in this strange hypothetical universe) as the speaker is, which is clearly not the sense intended by its advocates (nor one of any real use whatsoever).
(The chemical use of the terms (and para-/ortho-/meta-, and R/S, and others) arises only from chemistry's unpleasant obsession with the anthropomorphizing of atoms, and it's a serious mistake to try and reason by analogy therefrom without considering this fact. It's also worth pointing out that IUPAC has deperecated the use of cis/trans terminology partially for this reason and prefers the German E/Z (entgegen/zusammen) notation, which is much more rigorous.)
1 Of course, the mere fact that it is absurd doesn't necessarily mean that it's not true, but it does mean that I (reasonably) won't believe you without a credible source. If you do have one (people have been known to do absurd things), I'll refer you to point #3.
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Even if it did, the term 'cisgender' would be meaningless as used and would only make any kind of sense to describe someone who is on the "same side of gender" (whatever that would mean in this strange hypothetical universe) as the speaker is
The location of "Cisalpine Gaul" does not change depending on whether or not you're in Germany or Sicily. It is always on the same side of the Alps as Rome, which everyone in the Latin-speaking world was capable of recognizing as a privileged frame of reference. Using cultural context to help assign meaning is just really not that difficult.
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