name droppingness

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Feb 15, 2009, at 4:10 AM, Damien Hall quoted:

> 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..."'

there are some other cites for "name-droppingness", e.g.:

   There was insufficient lead-up to the reveal at the end and the
perpetual name-droppingness of all the references was supremely
annoying.
apps.facebook.com/facebookshelf/people/1049054081?reviews_page=4

   I didn't say I knew Mary, just that I met her once so I bow to your
superior name-droppingness. Anyway, everyone knows Millicent knows
everyone, ...
www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/3712061/Main/3708434/

   So it's public transport or Shanks' Pony for me. Off to a posh
Garden Party this afternoon - the name-droppingness will be terrific.
stormorphans.org.uk/index.php?action=printpage;topic=1171.0

Damien tried to interpret "name-droppingness" as something else
because the -ness seemed not to be contributing anything.  but in fact
-ness is used creatively and playfully.  Language Log has had several
postings on the topic, beginning with

ML, 3/24/04: Cuteness:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000634.html

where Mark Liberman noted "an interesting new morphological fad: "X +
ness = X, which I am trying to be funny or cute about"".

then there's

AZ, 3/1/07: Get Fuzzy gets playful:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004254.html

where i quote some examples from Rachel Shallit's blog entries that
were the inspiration for Mark's earlier posting:

N + -ness = N: mathness, schoolness, paperness, ...

V + -ness = N: studyness, typeness, swimness, ...

V + -ness = V: not much time to writeness; while i studyness all the
time

Adj + -ness = Adj: It's the wonderfulness poem; that is very coolness

(the N + -ness = N type is by far the most frequent, and this is the
one that "name-droppingness" belongs to.)

and then

AZ, 5/12/07: Zippy’s suffixiness:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004489.html

with some discussion of -iness.

by the way, in searching for "name-droppingness" examples, i came
across quite a few "jaw-droppingness" examples, for instance:

I doubt Force Unleashed will top the jaw droppingness of KOTOR but i
am prepared to be proven wrong...
www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=
26557449&union_id=3157&page=1

this is  a more or less normal use of -ness (Adj + -ness = N), given
that "jaw-dropping" is an adjective, though it does have a playful
flavor to it.

arnold

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