commentariat

[Peter McGraw]

What about commissariat?  It's defined in AHD (1st ed., the one I still
have) as: "1. A department of an army in charge of providing food and
other supplies to the troops.  2. The officers in charge of this.  3. A
food supply.  4. Formerly, any major government department in the
Soviet Union."  Either 2. or 4. provides a pretty good analogy, and you
only need to substitute one syllable to get "commentariat.".  I don't
think you need -tariat as a model suffix, only -ariat, since the
comment- part supplies the t.

Peter Mc.

On Sat, 22 May 1999 05:10:26 CDT Joseph McCollum <prez234 at JUNO.COM>
wrote:

> On Fri, 21 May 1999 16:48:17 -0400 Barnhart <barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM>
> writes:
> >Dear Bruce,
> >
> >Yup! I think it's new.  It's scheduled for Barnhart Dictionary
> >Companion
> >(Vol. 12.1, due in the Fall).  E.Q. (i.e. earliest quote found) is
> >1993.
> >Quotes included (for now) are from Time, The Village Voice, and
> >Newsday.
> >It reminds me of punditocracy (DC 11.1).  It may be modeled on
> >mullahtariat (DC Vol. 2.3: 1981).  I've not seen other words on
> >-tariat.
> >
> >Regards,
> >David K. Barnhart
> >Barnhart at highlands.com
>
> I immediately thought of prole-tariat.  (The class of people who
> contribute to the state
> by having children).
> There's also secretariat (the famous race horse Secretariat and United
> Nations post ) -- but a check of the dictionary shows a secretariat can
> also be a group or department of secretaries -- as well as the place
> where a secretary transacts business.
>
>
>
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----------------------
Peter A. McGraw
Linfield College
McMinnville, Oregon
pmcgraw at linfield.edu