(quasi-)neologisms

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, 9 May 2005 13:56:26 -0400, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>At 1:37 PM -0400 5/9/05, Michael Adams wrote:
>>All of these are really nice examples of the phenomenon -- the density
>>of examples per year seems to intensify later, but there's a pretty
>>straight line along these to later use.  The VERB + much examples are
>>also interesting, but the pattern is older and more frequent than ADJ +
>>much.  In the Buffyverse, though, speakers stretch the constraints a
>>bit, e.g. Respect the narrative flow much?
>>
>>Last night's episode of "Grey's Anatomy" included a very rhetorical
>>"Jealous much?"
>>
>One possible derivation:
>
>Aa an ellipsis from
>
>You don't obsess much, do you?
>You're not jealous much, are you?
>
>both of course interpreted ironically or sarcastically.  The
>word-order in the latter is still a bit odd, though, and the end
>result of the conventionalized irony is that the negative polarity
>item "much" occurs in a superficially affirmative context ("Broken
>record much").  Seems like a potential ADS/AS paper lurking here...

One interesting example from the Usenet archive:

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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/k12.chat.junior/msg/cf9ded057a6d6e59
k12.chat.junior, Feb 1 1995
Can we say "Rude Much?!"
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This combines two framing devices for sarcastic rhetorical questions: "Can
we say 'X'?" and "X much?"  The form "Can we/you say...?" has been around
for quite a while, no doubt based on the pedantic patter of kiddie-show
hosts (the question sometimes has the vocative tag, "...boys and girls?").

The sarcasm of "X much?" is usually directed at others, but it's possible
to use it self-deprecatingly, e.g.:

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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.music.chapel-hill/msg/8d9964287a9ef06e
alt.music.chapel-hill, Dec 22 1994
There definitely is a Movement associated iwth it, whcih (dyslexic,
much?) 'Chunque won't hit.
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--Ben Zimmer