"abominal" =abominable

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Fri Sep 29 17:27:39 UTC 2006


On Sep 29, 2006, at 5:15 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:

> On _Fox & Friends_ this morning, LTG Mike DeLong (USMC, ret.),
> former Deputy Commander of CENTCOM in Iraq, has categorized the
> recent leak of an intelligence document to the _Times_ as "abominal."
>
>   25,000 raw Googlits, though many represent "abdominal."

could be phonological simplification, or replacement of -able by -al
(cf. seasonable/seasonal).

arnold

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