preggers

[Damien Hall]

May I please pick your brains? This is a question about a British English
example, but there may be relevant parallels in American English too.

'Preggers' is one UK slang word for 'pregnant' (not particularly common,
but heard nevertheless). A colleague and I are wondering whether or not it
is morphologically-complex. My instinct is to say that it is not, since I
can't, off the top of my head, think of any other uses of an ending _-ers_
appended to a truncation of some other lexical item and used to signify
offhandedness, or to lessen the seriousness of the item (which is, I think,
the effect of 'preggers' as opposed to 'pregnant'). Still, we have a
nagging suspicion that there may be something we are missing / just can't
think of. Can anyone come up with any other examples?

Would you please copy any replies to my colleage (Jennifer Nycz, copied in
here), assuming they're sent to the list? Jennifer isn't a list-member.
Thanks!

Damien

--
Damien Hall

University of York
Department of Language and Linguistic Science
Heslington
YORK
YO10 5DD
UK

Tel. (office) +44 (0)1904 432665
     (mobile) +44 (0)771 853 5634
Fax  +44 (0)1904 432673

BORDERS AND IDENTITIES CONFERENCE, JAN 2010:
http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb/bic2010/

http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/lang/people/pages/hall.htm

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