more morphological reshaping: longetivity

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

to add to overature, perculate, heinious, simular, etc.: longetivity.

last night at a board meeting for a condo association (to choose a
contractor to replace the roofing), one of my neighbors asked about
the longetivity of the shingles.  no one seemed to notice except me.

ca. 118,000 raw webhits for "longetivity", 858 for "longitivity".

not really a blend (there is no really good candidate for a specific
second word contributing to the form), but a reshaping of "longevity"
to make it fit the pattern of nouns in -tivity, of which there are a
fair number.

the simpler reshaping, to "longivity" is also amply attested (ca.
41,400 webhits).

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org