Truthiness morphing

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 8, 2007, at 9:26 AM, Larry Horn wrote:

> At 10:21 AM -0400 5/8/07, David Bowie wrote:
>>
>> ... 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.
>>
> Reminding one (at least this one) of Haj Ross's "nouniness squish",
> referring (in a 1973 paper) to the different extents to which a
> particular constituent functions like a noun.  The idea then,
> anticipating Colbert's truthiness and the recent spinoffs, was that
> rather than a categorical binary distinction (either it's a noun or
> it isn't), nouniness is a matter of degree...

i think there's some subtlety here.  haj's "nouniness" and the
current "spamminess", i think, just make claims of degree -- that
some words can be more nouny (more like undoubted nouns) than others,
that some mail is more spammy (more like undoubted spam) than
others.  what's going on with "truthiness", "faminess", and
"referenciness" is something more complex: what's truthy, famey, or
referency doesn't just approximate (but fails to reach) truth, fame,
or references; it's in some way false or inauthentic, a masquerade of
truth, fame, or references.  the Colbert suffix is not just the
ordinary -y plus ordinary -ness, but involves a disparaging use of -y
(plus ordinary -ness).

arnold

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