more morphological reshaping: longetivity

[Charles Doyle]

Also occasionally heard--sometimes with jocular intent--is "shortgevity," (there are 270 Google hits),  reanalyzing "longevity" to posit the root as "-gevity" rather than "-evity."  (Zero Google hits for "shortgetivity"; one for "shortgivity"!)

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:58:05 -0700
>From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject: more morphological reshaping: longetivity
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>
>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 afair number.
>
>the simpler reshaping, to "longivity" is also amply attested (ca. 41,400 webhits).
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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