another suffix freely worded (ish)

[Laurence Horn]

The New York Times
September 5, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final

  SECTION: Section F; Page 8; Column 5; House & Home/Style Desk

   HEADLINE: Inheriting a Magazine, Looking for a New Edge

  BYLINE:  By JOHN LELAND

  BODY:
  ON Monday, Jeremy Langmead was named the next editor of the
obsessively stylish London-based magazine Wallpaper. And so it is
fair to ask: Does he have a Wallpaper apartment?

  Mr. Langmead, speaking by telephone from London, hesitated. "Ish,"
he said, employing the international shorthand for slight hedge. His
East London home, then, is obsessive-ish.
=========

What makes this especially interesting for our purposes is that while
some (including me) would consider this "ish" to be derivational, it
doesn't change category (at least in contexts like "obsessive-ish"
where it attaches to adjectives) and in other ways is a plausible
candidate for an inflectional affix.  I wonder, though whether it can
be used even by someone like Mr. Langmead without an immediate
triggering context, although it has to be admitted that the
connection here (to "Wallpaper-ish") is somewhat oblique.  Is anyone
more familiar than I am with this "international shorthand" and its
distribution?

larry