More on Bierce, Yates, "smog"

Daniel Ezra Johnson ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM
Sat Apr 7 03:55:36 UTC 2001


A Web search found the following:

http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/as/Literature/Bierce/forked.html

Forked Tongue by Andrew Graham

"Invention of etymology, in which punning constructs a verb from a noun, as
in adder*, reappears in liver ("the seat of life"). The portmanteau of
'smoke' and fog is accurately recorded as being made into "smog" by Mr
Edmund Yates, [19] yet Bierce's own, possibly best, neologisms,
"futilitarian" (a certain socialist) and "femininies" (feminists) [20] have
unfortunately not found currency in this dictionary and the "Neo -
Dictionarians" have to restrict themselves to theological argument with the
sacerodotalist."

Footnote 19: "This attribution to an otherwise accurate etymology has not
been substantiated by any dictionary this author has referred to."


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