-est x3

[Garson O'Toole]

William Makepeace Thackeray used a similar humorous construction in
The Irish Sketch Book. The Britannica (1911) says the Irish
Sketch-Book came out in 1843. The information below is from an 1869
edition:

Cite: 1869, The Irish Sketch Book: and Notes of a Journey from
Cornhill to Grand Cairo, Page 236, Smith, Elder and Co., London.

THE little tour we have just been taking has been performed, not only
by myriads of the "car-drivingest, tay-drinkingest, say-bathingest
people in the world," the inhabitants of the city of Dublin, but also
by all the tourists who have come to discover this country for the
benefit of the English nation.

http://books.google.com/books?id=slxAAAAAYAAJ&q=bathingest#v=snippet&

The 1878 quotation I gave earlier incorrectly omitted the last word.
The excerpt should have read:

He is the most gin-drinkingest, beer-swillingest, pipe-smokingest,
work-shirkingest, wife-beatingest, insolentest scoundrel that you can
have to deal with.

Sorry. Please double check the information I give if you plan to use it. Thanks,
Garson

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: -est x3
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This might fit the criteria if the Google Books date is accurate:
>
> 1878, The Education Craze and Its Results by D.C.L, Page 176, Harrison
> and Sons, London. (Google Books full view)
>
> No, sir! never if you can help it, have anything to do with one of
> those educated blackguards. He is the most gin-drinkingest,
> beer-swillingest, pipe-smokingest, work-shirkingest, wife-beatingest,
> insolentest scoundrel that you can have to deal.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=5KMAAAAAYAAJ&q=swillingest#v=snippet&
>
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>> Subject:      -est x3
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> from Michael Brick,
>> Lizard as Big as Texas Finds
>> A New Rooftop Home There
>> NYT, 6/14/10
>>
>> ... By force of sheer monstrosity, Iggy soon became the mascot of the tequila-swillingest, cosmic-country-blaringest, 10-gallon-hat-wearingest joint in all of New York.
>>
>> [Iggy is a 40-foot, 2600-pound polyurethane-and-steel iguana figure that once graced the roof of Lone Star Cafe in Manhattan and has now been relocated at the Forth Worth Zoo in Texas.]
>>
>> ....
>>
>> my question is about the triplicate superlative formula in the cite, which i'm sure is of some age.  anyone have similar examples of reasonable venerableness?
>>
>> in the example above, all three modifiers are inflectional superlatives of synthetic compounds using a PRP verb form ("tequila-swilling", "cosmic-country-blaring", "10-gallon-hat-wearing").
>>
>> (1)  such synthetic compounds are themselves a stylistic feature, as in the mocking subtitle of Geoff Nunberg's 2006 book:
>>  Talking right: How conservatives turned liberalism into a tax-raising, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show
>>
>> (2) so are inflectional superlatives of PRP modifiers.  we discussed "winningest" and similar examples here back in 2007, noting that many people find such inflectional forms marginal at best as standard English.  (they certainly have a playful or ostentatious character.)
>>
>> (3) so is the use of parallel expressions in triplicate.  (this feature has been crystallized into the X3 snowclone -- "location, location, location" (with a conventionalized set-up) -- but it has wider uses as well.
>>
>> the cite above has all three of these features, which can occur independently, in one package.  i'm looking for other three-in-one examples, especially ones from some years ago.
>>
>> arnold
>>
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