Legal Writing

Can you feel what I feel? Empathy's adjective

By Pam_Nelson

A reader sent me an e-mail message about word usage in a caption that appeared on the Sports front  recently. You can see the photo below.

The reader asserted that the adjective should be empathic, instead of empathetic. Because I have rarely, if ever, seen empathic used, I immediately turned to my dictionaries. Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2001) has an entry for empathic that notes "also empathetic." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition (2003) and Webster's New World College Dictionary, fourth edition (2000) have separate listings for the two words. The definition ("characterized by empathy") is given for empathetic, and empathic is defined as empathetic. Merriam-Webster notes that empathic is older, dating from 1909, while empathetic is from 1932.

My next step was to check the usage authorities.  Bryan A. Garner in "Garner's Modern American Usage, Third Edition" (2009)  writes that "Empathetic is the usual form. ... In modern usage, empathetic is nearly four times as common in print sources." R.W. Burchfield in "Fowler's Modern English Usage" (1998) says that empathic is the more usual form.

We can guess that empathetic became more common because it matches the forms of sympathetic and apathetic. Some purists would say that we American speakers and writers have corrupted the language by changing the form of the adjective. But language is a changing thing. New words and new forms come into use and older ones drop out. 

So, as I wrote to the reader, it appears that the two adjectives are interchangeable and that neither is incorrect. However, because empathic is so much less common in current usage, we would confuse more readers if we had used that word. We were better off choosing empathetic.

Of course, because I am a geek of a certain age, the word empathic reminded me of a "Star Trek" episode about an empath, a humanoid who could take pain away from others by taking in on herself. The empath was played by Kathryn Hayes, who later became one of my favorite soap opera actresses (Kim Hughes, "As The World Turns"). The empath quality became much better known on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with Counselor Deanna Troi. 

In fact, I am not the only one who strikes off on a "Star Trek" reverie when the word empathic is mentioned. 

If you would like to hear a "Word for the Wise" Web broadcast about empathic and empathetic, go to this link at Merriam-Webster online.  And if you would like to read a veritable rant against empathetic, go here. 

I can imagine, too, that some people would say that the caption that started this discussion should have used sympathetic instead. Here is a piece about the difference between empathy and sympathy.  I think empathy was what the coach was feeling for her players.

Full post as published by Triangle Grammar Guide on May 23, 2010 (boomark / email).