economics

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Dec 30, 2008, at 10:41 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      economics
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This doesn't quite rival the snow words that have sprung up in the
> past
> week, but ESPN earlier today had a Wendy's and a Mazda commercial back
> to back. The former's theme was "3conomics". The
> latter's--"mazdanomics". It seems, with popularity of Freakonomics
> and a
> tip of the hat to Reaganomics, "nomics" are popping up everywhere.

it looks like this might be on the way to becoming a affix, cutting
loose from the original "economics".  at the moment, these still have
the feel of portmanteau words for me (with a tinge of ostentatious
creativity and playfulness), but things could change.  The element -
dar seems to have gone pretty far down this path (though it's not yet
in Michael Quinion's Ologies and Isms, where it could keep company
with -((e)t)eria and -gate and others); the original was "gaydar", a
portmanteau of "gay" and "radar", but then all sorts of other elements
replaced the "gay" of "gaydar", as in "Jewdar".  there are links to
three Language Log postings on -dar in my recent posting on
"manecdotes" and "brobituaries":

   http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/manecdotes-and-brobituaries/

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org