saditty, hincty + dicty

[Douglas G. Wilson]

I think there's a difference between what's conceivable and what's expected
or predictable. I'm just a blue-collar layman and I don't know much about
phonology (or most other things), but I can't see that it's obvious or
natural to derive the adjective "dickty" from the uncountable abstract noun
"dignity". Even phonetically I would naively expect "dinty" or perhaps more
likely "dinkty" rather than "dickty" by the proposed reduction of "dignity"
anyway. If, however, there were a known earlier nearly-synonymous adjective
"dignity", then I would say that a presumptive case could be made for the
proposed derivation.

I don't think the ending "-ty" is peculiar or problematic: it's probably a
routine development, the same as in "uppity", "biggity", "persnickety".
It's the "dick" part which still needs some explaining IMHO.

-- Doug Wilson