saditty, hincty + dicty

[Wilson Gray]

I am in complete agreement with you. I couldn't have expressed it
better myself. ;-)

-Wilson Gray

On Jul 27, 2005, at 2:01 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: saditty, hincty + dicty
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>
> 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
>