Truthiness morphing

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:56 AM -0700 5/8/07, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On May 8, 2007, at 7:21 AM, David Bowie wrote:
>
>>[quoting] It's not a simple
>>    Yes/No but a sliding scale of (with apologies to Stephen
>>    Colbert) 'spaminess'.
>>
>>I would have probably spelled it "spamminess" myself, but it's
>>interesting to see "-iness" being used actively to mean something like
>>"something like this noun, but not exactly like it" with an overt
>>nod to
>>the Colbert Report.
>
>in my Language Log posting on "truthiness", "faminess", and
>"referenciness" --
>
>   http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004260.html
>
>-- i called this the "Colbert suffix".  i wondered there whether
>"justiciness" might soon be coined.  one reader provided me with what
>would be an instance of justiciness, but the only hit for the word i
>get (besides my discussion) is one that cites my discussion: the
>blogger Shinga cites me on referenciness, adding:
>
>To borrow further from Zwicky, there would be a certain justiciness
>is seeing this nonsense exposed for what it is.
>
>   http://breathspakids.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-igg-testing-for-food-
>intolerance-is.html

Wonderful.  There is, if not irony in this, at least a certain ju'iciness.

LH

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