name droppingness

[Damien Hall]

Benjamin -

'I'm pretty sure it was on "This American Life" today that I heard the
expression "name droppingness". The gist was "..--there's no way to
avoid name droppingness, Harvard University..."'

Can you remember what the vowel in the last syllable of this word was?
Because, if it was [I], it seems more likely to me that the phrase was
'name-dropping this' - both because 'name droppingness' seems not to be
essential (the speaker could just have said 'to avoid name-dropping') and
because 'name-drop' + NP is idiomatic as a transitive verb (for me) with
the meaning 'name-drop by using the following famous name'. Is that
possible?

Damien

--
Damien Hall

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

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