Pediphile May Be a New Designation

My wife had a pedicure in-house today. What is that practioner's profession? Pedicurist? Foot (pedi) curer? Carer? Mano-a-mano translates to hand-to-hand explaining a manicurist clipping finger nails on, well, one's mano. Mano-a-appendage is something else entirely. When you visit a talon salon, you always get a double-whammy mani-pedi by the same practioner. They don't have a manicurist paint your nails then corral you within the stall of a differently-credentialed practitioner to soak your pedis in one of those elegant paw tubs with the aromatic bath salts. In short, your bog-standard supermarket claw station is very unlike the hospital emergency room where one nurse in scrubs with a stethoscope dangling around his tits takes your blood pressure, then they wheel you to someone in a lab coat to collect your urine sample, and yet someone else to perform oral swabs.

I struggled for the term for someone who works on feet but podiatrist was taken by the foot doctor industry, and reflexoligist, by foot massage homeopathic quackery. I came up with "pediphile" (phile=love) as a professional label for practitioners who love working on paw claws. Pediphobe (look up bacteriophobe) would be those professionals who gag and balk at probing anywhere near the gooey gunk that collects between toes, despite donning kevlar-coated surgical gloves on their manos.

My wife objected to my freshly-coined term because it sounds dubious in the way homeopath conjures up fantasies of a gay axe murderer.

I have to concede that "pediphile" is not a professional designation. In fact, it is a condition. It is best illustrated by example: let's say President Donald Trump (I proclaim TDS proudly to, you know, err on the side of civility) of the USA (other lands have presidents too) notoriously and by his own admission, "Likes them young," also has a foot fetish. He then would be both a pedophile and pediphile, respectively rather than respectfully, unlike a double-major in college.