(quasi-)neologisms

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:18 AM -0400 5/9/05, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 11:10:27AM -0400, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>  From a recent novel featuring life among 20-somethings in New York.
>>  OK, one of these is evidently not new, but represents an unfamiliar
>>  construction to me:
>>
>>  "obsessive much?" as a query, evidently a rhetorical question, to
>>  which the anticipated (non-vocalized) answer is "Yes, X is/are indeed
>>  very obsessive (about whatever it is)".  Michael Adams can perhaps
>>  tell us whether this is a Buffyism.  A quick tour of google hits
>>  (703, some but not most of which are false positives involving
>>  sentence breaks between the "obsessive" and the "much") doesn't
>>  indicate this, but it *sounds* like a Buffyism.  Which doesn't of
>>  course mean that it was first launched on the show, of course.
>
>It was popularized on Buffy, though not first found there, as
>the OED entry makes clear:

Thanks, Jess.  this is it, indeed; I never thought to check on
whether it had been already sucked up by the OED vacuum cleaners!  I
was pretty sure it must extend to other adjectives, and "jealous
much(?)" seems like an obvious candidate.  But it seems like all the
quasi-interrogative cites I've seen, here and (for "obsessive much?")
on google, involve rhetorical rather than true questions, so probably
we'd want more than just "elliptical comment or question" in the
gloss.

Larry

>
>  h. colloq. (orig. U.S., freq. ironic). With a preceding
>adjective, infinitive verb, or noun phrase, forming an
>elliptical comment or question.
>   The use was popularized by the film _Buffy, the Vampire
>Slayer_ and the television series derived from it.
>
>   1988 D. WATERS Heathers (film script) 15 God Veronica, drool
>much? His name's Jason Dean. 1988 D. WATERS Heathers (film
>script) 86 Heather Duke. It was J.D.'s idea! He made out the
>signature sheet and everything. Now will you sign
>it. Veronica. (queasy) No. Heather Duke. Jealous much? 1992
>J. WHEDON Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film script) 8 A stranger,
>walking the other way, bumps into Buffy, doesn't
>stop... Buffy. Excuse much! Not rude or anything. 1992
>J. WHEDON Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film script) 25 Pike and
>Benny have entered the diner, quite drunk... Kimberly (to the
>other girls) Smell of booze much. 1998 M. BURGESS & R. GREEN
>Isabella in Sopranos (television shooting script) 1st Ser. 1
>42 Anthony Jr. Probably I can't go to that dance now
>either. Meadow. God, self-involved much? 2001 Cosmopolitan
>Dec. 178 You've seen them: the kinds of couples who finish
>each other's sentences... Jealous much? Damn right.
>
>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED