annals of countification

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> card from a friend yesterday with a clipping from some publication:
>
> We love it when really good porns are made into even better sequels!
>
> "porns"?, my friend asked.
>
> so i googled away and found plenty of hits for "porns" 'porn movies',
> many irrelevant and some from clearly non-native speakers, but also
> quite a few good finds:
[snip]
> that last "porns" hit also had an instance of "pornos" in it,
> referring to porn movies.  see below.  along with some further hits,
> including one for "pornos" 'porn magazines'.
[snip]
> also relevant hits for "a porn" and "a porno" (Kevin Smith movie "Zack
> and Miri Make a Porno").
>
> in the tradition of count "slang" and "folklore".

OED3 has "porno" = 'a pornographic film' from 1971. Nothing for "porn"
as a count noun, though (well, except for the rare sense as
'pornographer').

--Ben Zimmer

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