Sunday, March 15, 2020
Empathize vs. Sympathize
Empathize vs. Sympathize Empathize vs. Sympathize Empathize vs. Sympathize By Maeve Maddox A reader says, Ive always been confused on how to use [the words empathize and sympathize] in proper context. For about 300 years, English speakers didnââ¬â¢t have to choose between sympathize and empathize to express the idea of sharing anotherââ¬â¢s feelings. Empathize hadnââ¬â¢t been invented yet. The first OED example of sympathize in the sense of ââ¬Å"to share the feelings of anotherâ⬠is dated 1607; the first use of empathize with this meaning dates from 1916. à However, the noun empathy was introduced in 1895 by a psychologist to describe ââ¬Å"a physical property of the nervous system analogous to electrical capacitance, believed to be correlated with feeling.â⬠This definition of empathy did not survive, but the word has found a lasting place in the vocabulary of psychology as the English equivalent of German Einfà ¼hlung: ââ¬Å"sympathetic understanding.â⬠This kind of empathy is ââ¬Å"the ability to understand and appreciate another personââ¬â¢s feelings and experience.â⬠Before the psychological term empathize entered the general vocabulary, speakers did just fine with sympathize when they wished to speak of feeling the joy or pain of others. Now that we have a second word for the same concept, empathize has come to denote a stronger, more personal sense of fellow feeling than sympathize. For example, I may sympathize with the fire victim who has lost her home and all of her possessions, but I cannot empathize with her because, mercifully, I have not experienced that trauma in my own life. On the other hand, because I had to spend a day and a night in a Red Cross emergency shelter during an ice storm, I can empathize with people who must live in shelters for extended periods. The great gift of literature is that it enables readers to empathize with a wide variety of fellow creatures. They donââ¬â¢t even have to be human. When I read Black Beauty, I empathized with a horse. Sympathy and empathy are equally beautiful human characteristics. Sympathize is appropriate in most contexts. Empathizeis best suited to situations that you have experienced yourself, either in the real world or through the power of literature. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Punctuating ââ¬Å"Soâ⬠at the Beginning of a SentenceAmong vs. AmongstProverb vs. Adage
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