I found the article titled “Birtherism isn’t dead” in today’s Washington Post. It begins with the following sentence:
“Discussion of President Obama’s place of birth died down significantly when he released his long-form birth certificate. But birtherism still lives, even if it no longer gets as much attention.”
Although Wikipedia gives definition of ‘birtherism,” none of reputed dictionaries such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Merriam-Webster carries this word. Google NGram neither shows the record of incidence.
As a non-native English speaker, I feel the word, “Birtherism” is somewhat awkward by its construction, just like saying “Motherism,” “Midwifeism,” “Birthplaceism.” and “Originism.”
Is “Birtherism” well-received English word, particularly in America? If not, why it is shown in the newspaper without quotation marks or any sign that shows the word is recently coined or has a special meaning.
Best Answer
The -ism suffix can indicate a philosophy, belief system, or ideological movement, as in liberalism, Prebyterianism, or Gaullism. Here, it has been affixed to birther, because that is what these conspiracists have become known as, not "birthplaceists" or "originauts" or "Indonizers" or whatnot:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/birther?region=us&q=birther
As it refers to a specific political movement and not a general concept, and as it is a rather recent phenomenon, I would not expect it to have made its way into too many authorities.
The -er+ism form recalls a slightly older, comparably reputable movement: trutherism, derived from truther.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/truther?region=us&q=truther
I venture to say both words would be familiar to an average reader of the Washington Post, but not necessarily to the average American— any more than Dominionism, Straussianism, or Thatcherism, for example.