(Adj) City

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 09:52:30AM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> On Feb 19, 2007, at 6:46 AM, Barry Popik wrote:
>
> >"-City" has been popular since at least the 1950s. Compare with "-
> >ville,"  as
> >in "nowheresville." [1954 in NewspaperArchive; 1959 in revised  OED.]
>
> we're doing ok on tracing "N City".  what about "Adj City" and "V City"?
>
> ah, i see that jesse found "weep city" (a "V City" item) in HDAS,
> from 1946.

These entries are under _city_ n., yes, though some of the
more prominent individual ones are entered separately
(e.g. _fun city_ 'New York City', 1966 in HDAS though I think
(but am too lazy to check right now) Barry has since
antedated).

HDAS splits the entry up into N city ("first city", "romance
city", "nut city"), from 1930; Adj city ("cheap city", "dumb
city", schitzo city") from 1968, and V city ("weep city",
"beef city" [in ref. to beefing, i.e. complaining, so probably
a verb]) from 1946. Oh, and entries for "more highly allusive
combinations" (e.g. "'Want a trip to Loose-Tooth City?'
Garfield was inquiring over one cocked paw").

It's not always easy to tell the intended part of speech
here. And I recall--Jon, you can correct me here--that the
entry as originaly drafted was somewhat more complicated,
with more of a semantic breakdown, but we simplified it
to these four subsenses.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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