(quasi-)neologisms

[Laurence Horn]

>I'm not sure if self reporting is helpful, but my college friends and I
>said things like this in college in the late 1970's-- our favorite was
>"walk much?" if someone tripped.  This SW PA circa 1976.  Not sure where
>it came from though.
>
>Patti Kurtz

I think this usage (which I could imagine hearing or saying) is
different, in that a negative proposition is implicated here (=
'apparently, you don't walk much'), while the Heathero-Buffyist usage
implicates a positive one, as noted below.  Plus there's no negative
evaluation of the activity of walking in connection with the
"out-of-practice" reading above the way there is with obsessiveness,
jealousy, paranoia, etc.

Larry

>jester at PANIX.COM wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
>>Subject:      Re: (quasi-)neologisms
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>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:
>>
>>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
>>
>
>--
>
>Dr. Patti J. Kurtz
>
>Assistant Professor, English
>
>Director of the Writing Center
>
>Minot State University
>
>Minot, ND 58707
>
>
>
>Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that.
>
>
>
>Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims
>that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program?
>
>
>
>Foster: But we are RIGHT!
>
>
>
>Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough.