"Nixonomics," or, Safire fails to mention an ADS member's work yet again

bapopik at AOL.COM bapopik at AOL.COM
Sun Jun 5 05:13:38 UTC 2005


William Safire's Sunday "On Language" column mentions "Nixonomics" and others like that. However, Ben Zimmer discussed that on May 13th. And he discussed it better.
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What goes through Safire's mind? Oh, here's an ADS member! He gives out his work to other scholars for free! Well, SCREW HIM! NO CREDIT FOR YOU!
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Amazing. Join the club, Ben. He'll recognize you in ten years, if he's still alive. This is a disgrace.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05ONLANGUAGE.html
NOMICSNOMICS
I had a hand, as a White House speechwriter back in 1969, in popularizing the word Nixonomics. It seemed like a nice encapsulation of a philosophy of a ''full-employment budget'' but soon became a handy phrase that liberals could use to castigate stagflation and conservatives to hoot at wage and price controls.
Now the last two syllables of economics are making a comeback. Nomics is in, with or without the initial n. We have genomics, mapping the DNA sequencing of sets of genes, and the more recent proteomics, analyzing the interaction of the proteins produced by the genes of a particular cell. Ergonomics is the science of designing modern equipment to reduce discomfort as we plonk our way painfully through the carpel tunnel of love. Leaping on the -nomics bandwagon, with the vowel o inserted, is rockonomics, the monetary machinations of the huge and lucrative music industry. (For that matter, see Freakonomics.)
Here's my advice to White House aides of all stripes: If your president's name ends with an n, brace yourself for an -omics branding. Thus did we have Nixonomics, Reaganomics and Clintonomics. We did not have Fordonomics or Carternomics or Bushonomics, nor would we have had Dukakisonomics or Gorenomics or Kerrynomics. It has nothing to do with politics; it's the elision quality of the last letter of the president's last name.
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(ADS-L ARCHIVES, 13 May 2005)
There's a Slate article today about "rockonomics":


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http://slate.msn.com/id/2118607/
Among the crowd rushing the stage is Alan Krueger, the Princeton labor
economist who is an expert on the minimum wage and many other things. In a
paper written with Marie Connolly, which managed to cite both singer Paul
Simon and Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, Krueger set out to
answer some fundamental questions of what he and Connolly call
"rockonomics." (This is not to be confused with Freakonomics, the book
co-written by University of Chicago economists Steven D. Levitt and
Stephen J. Dubner.)
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The "-(o)nomics" suffix is nothing new, of course (William Safire claims
to have coined "Nixonomics" in 1969).  As has been noted, the suffix can
appear in one of three forms depending on the final syllable of the root:


Case 1: a root ending in (or consisting of) a stressed syllable takes
_-onomics_ (Fordonomics, Bushonomics, freakonomics, rockonomics)


Case 2: a root ending in an unstressed syllable (other than Case 3 below)
takes _-nomics_ (Carternomics, Thatchernomics, Kerrynomics, cybernomics)


Case 3: a root ending in unstressed or secondarily stressed /-Vn/ takes
_-omics_ (Nixonomics, Reaganomics, Clintonomics, Putinomics, Enronomics)


Interestingly, the Slate article also uses "rockonomy":


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In some ways, the rockonomy resembles the increasingly winner-take-all
American economy. The rich are getting richer, and it's good to be the
king or queen of pop. In 1982, the top 1 percent of artists banked 26
percent of ticket revenues; in 2003, they garnered 56 percent.
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I haven't noticed the "-(o)nomy" suffix before.  Here are some other
examples off the Web:


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http://www.mdcbowen.org/cobb/archives/003625.html
[a critique of Levitt and Dubner's _Freakonomics_ by Michael Bowen]
A 'freakonomy' might be described as a highly indexed and tabulated view
of something of curiosity to the average American, but probably an
unlikely subject in the staid academy.
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http://dean4az.blogspot.com/2003/10/bush-bucks.html
I recommend you take a peek at Bush's donor list and remember who is
making Bush's re-appointment bid possible the next time you are going to
spend any money in our Bushonomy.
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http://new.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=nloucks&tab=weblogs&uid=65594600
Clinton thought he had the solution but we all know that failed.  How does
John Kerry want to resolve that?  Clintonomy?  I sure hope not.
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http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2001mar/gee20010330005119.htm
Can the FCC save the techonomy?
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/01/12/14_enronomy.html
George W. Bush believes he can coin new words for the English language, so
I thought I'd give my first shot at this practice with enronomy. Look at
the beauty in the word. Enron is a perfect analogy for the current
economic conditions in this nation.
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There are some morphological and prosodic constraints to this suffixation,
since the "on" syllable must receives stress.  It works best with Case 1
above, especially if the root ends in /-k/ (rockonomy, freakonomy,
techonomy, Bushonomy).  It also works, though not quite as well, with Case
3, but only when the root ends in unstressed or secondarily stressed "-on"
(Nixonomy, Clintonomy, Enronomy).  (This requires changing the stress and
also possibly the vowel quality of the root's final syllable, but there's
already the model of "Nixonian", "Clintonian", etc.)  It doesn't seem to
work for other Case 3 roots (*Reaganomy, *Putinomy) or any Case 2 roots
(*Carternomy, *Kerrynomy, *cybernomy).


Am I missing any other possibilities?




--Ben Zimmer



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