Oftenly

Fri Aug 24 12:32:58 UTC 2007

A few years ago there was an evangelistic billboard campaign around these parts that had one memorable board that, IMHO, transcends creed. In white print on a solid black back:

  "Don't Make Me Come Down There!" --God.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Oftenly
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Gerald writes:

"Very few blends make it to the big-time of the =
standard language (e.g., "time and again" from "time after time" and =
"again and again.").

FWIW, though I am, naturally, fully familiar with both "time after
time" and "again and again," I know "time and again" only as a
literary or a poetic form. In ordinary, colloquial speech, I am
accustomed to hearing only "I've told you _time and time again_." It's
one of those "mother-talk" speech-forms such as, "your head is hard as
a rock," "talking to you is like talking to a wall," "if I've told you
once, I've told you a thousand times," "don't make me have to come get
you," "I thought I told you to clean up this mess," "I'm going to beat
you till I can't see you," "can't we have anything nice around here?"
etc., etc., etc.

Not being a parent, I've never had occasion to use these myself, but
I've heard these and more all too many times.

-Wilson

On 8/23/07, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
> Subject: Re: Oftenly
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Fastly" based on its antonym "slowly" seems to be something that =
> only children would produce (although it could later be imitated by =
> adults, if they so wished). I can't imagine an adult producing "fastly" =
> under the influence of "slowly." But I *can* imagine it being produced =
> by a blend, since blending frequently occurs in adult speech--as slips =
> of the tongue, it is true, but then that is an integral part of the =
> nature of blending. Very few blends make it to the big-time of the =
> standard language (e.g., "time and again" from "time after time" and =
> "again and again.").
> =20
> So "fastly," if produced spontaneously in adult speech, would like =
> derive from a blending of "fast" + "quickly."
> =20
> Now, if "oftenly" arose in adult speech, I see no problem in =
> invoking blending *at least as a possibility.* I've been noticing (and =
> often writing down) blends for almost 40 years. Some may be more =
> convincing than others, but the overall picture I have is of a =
> linguistic feature which occurs more often than the linguistic community =
> as a whole has recognized.=20
> =20
> In another message today Arnold quotes an earlier message of his:
>
> >i think that jerry's use of "blend" here stretches the word beyond
> all usefulness. it's just wrong to use a single term for all
> expressions that can be analyzed as a combination of two expressions.<
> =20
> Beyond all usefulness? I respectfully disagree. If blending =
> really is very frequent in language; if there are lexical blends as well =
> as syntactic ones (and this isn't original with me); and if people =
> frequently say "often" and "frequently," I see nothing daring in saying =
> that if a form "oftenly" arises, it may be a blend of the two words. =
> Now, maybe "oftenly" arose by analogy with the antonym "rarely" or =
> "seldomly." But to rule out blending because the term allegedly is =
> "beyond all usefulness" is to run the risk of setting aside a very =
> useful tool in analyzing speech errors and the origin of various =
> idiomatic features of English.
> =20
> Gerald Cohen
> =20
> =20
> ________________________________
>
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn
> Sent: Thu 8/23/2007 10:00 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Oftenly
>
>
>
>
> At 3:34 PM -0500 8/22/07, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
> >For some other reason? Yes, try blending: "often" + "frequently."
> >
> >Gerald Cohen
>
> My problem with the diagnosis of blending is that it's very difficult
> to demonstrate (without some psycholinguistic evidence, perhaps).
> Consider for example the frequent occurrence (mentioned in this
> thread and previous ones) of "fastly": a blend of "fast" and
> "quickly"? "fast" and "rapidly"? "fast" and its adverbial antonym
> "slowly"? Or just the reconstruction of (adverbial) "fast" with the
> widely productive adverbial "-ly"? How can we tell? The latter
> might traditionally be termed analogical formation, but there's no
> *specific* target the way there is with blends. If children, in
> particularly, come out with "fastly", it seems implausible that
> they're blending "fast" with the far less frequent and later-learned
> "quickly"/"rapidly". I suspect that "oftenly" and "seldomly" can be
> motivated by an account of the morphology of adverbial "-ly" without
> invoking specific "-ly"-bearing adverbs like "frequently" or
> "occasionally" or "rarely", although the more these adverbs are
> used/heard, the more likely the analogical formation will be. I'm
> happy to invoke blending in cases where there's evidence for a
> particular source pair, but I'm not sure why we'd want or need to
> generalize it to these cases.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >________________________________
> >
> >From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Michael Quinion
> >Sent: Wed 8/22/2007 3:39 AM
>
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: Oftenly
> >
> >
> >
> >A subscriber pointed out that a large number of examples of this form =
> can
> >be found online (and I've found examples in newspapers). The OED says =
> "Now
> >U.S. regional (rare)", which is clearly outdated. Would its =
> reappearance
> >be the result of hypercorrection, or for some other reason?
> >
> >--
> >Michael Quinion
> >Editor, World Wide Words
> >E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
> >Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org =
>
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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