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[Laurence Horn]

None of the above.  ImpossiBILitate(s), with secondary stress on the POS, but primary on the antepenult, as with “impossiBILity”.


> On Sep 9, 2021, at 10:17 PM, Chris Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET> wrote:
> 
> Where would you put the stress on this? imPOSsibilates? imposSIbilates?
> might for ever have imPOSsibilated?
> 
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2021 at 4:14 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
>>> On Sep 9, 2021, at 8:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Quora.com:
>>> 
>>> "The weight also would impossibilitate moving it to the front with
>> trains."
>>> 
>>> JL
>>> --
>>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth.”
>>> 
>> 
>> Some precedents per the OED, including a royal one:
>> 
>> 1633   T. Adams Comm. 2 Peter (ii. 14) 921   It [sc. covetousness]
>> impossibilitates the entrance into heaven.
>> 1646   King Charles I Let. in T. Carte Coll. Orig. Lett. (1735) III. 452
>> I..would do nothing to impossibilitate ayde [printed adye] from thence.
>> 1834   R. Southey Doctor II. 116   How many accidents might for ever have
>> impossibilitated the existence of this incomparable work!
>> 
>> The Quora poster was likely not in direct line to the throne.  Or, unlike
>> Southey, a poet laureate (albeit one mocked by Lewis Carroll).
>> 
>> Speaking of precedents—one wonders whether the coinage of this verb was an
>> item in the regicides’ bill of attainder against the ill-fated Charlie.
>> 
>> LH
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org