"bona fide" as past part.

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 8, 2008, at 4:42 AM, Michael Covarrubias wrote:

> A caller to C-SPAN's Washington Journal challenging Barack Obama to
> undo
> affirmative action and reverse laws protecting minorities if elected.
>
> "He has bona fide that blacks are just as equal as anyone else"
>
> Probably more by influence of 'bona fide' than 'bonify' as the latter
> isn't as common and doesn't have the likely connection to "proved" or
> "shown to be true"?
>
> A reanalysis of '-fide' as past part. '-ied'?

in Brians:

Bona fide is a Latin phrase meaning “in good faith,” most often used
to mean “genuine” today. It is often misspelled as if it were the past
tense of an imaginary verb: “bonafy.”
   http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/bonafied.html

"bonafied" is mentioned on Language Log as well:

AZ, 8/24/04: On the eggcorn beet:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001383.html

but maintaining the spelling while treating it as a verb form is new
to me.

arnold

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