-est x3

[Garson O'Toole]

 Dan Goncharoff wrote
>>Am I the only one suspicious of "car-drivingest" from 1843? Or 1869?

 Laurence Horn wrote:
> car = 'cart, wagon'?

I think the phrase does sound odd, perhaps because historically
"motor-car" was shortened to "car", and an earlier definition of "car"
was displaced. The OED has a first citation in 1382 for this earlier
definition of car (as Larry Horn suggests):
1. A wheeled vehicle or conveyance:

Maybe the quote is using definition 1.c.
c. spec. Applied locally and at special periods to various vehicles in
particular; also with defining words, as Irish car, etc.
1824-7 HONE  Every-day Bk. II. 240 The common Irish Car is used
throughout the province of Leinster..The Irish ‘jaunting car’ [is a]
wholly distinct and superior vehicle.

Here is another reference to "car-driving" in Dublin in the 1840s.

Cite: 1841 July, The Collegian: Conducted by the Students of the
University of Virginia, Something About Our Village, Page 297, Number
X, Volume III, Magruder & Noel, Charlottesville.

Every town has had its eulogist. Homer sang of Troy, Doctor Johnson of
London - many an Irish bard has recounted "the tay drinking, say
bathing, car-driving qualities of Dublin," and Miss Mitford has
twaddled about "our village;" but that was not "ours."

http://books.google.com/books?id=8NRKAAAAYAAJ&q=driving#v=snippet&

Garson

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 4:15 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: -est x3
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3:50 PM -0400 6/14/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>>Am I the only one suspicious of "car-drivingest" from 1843? Or 1869?
>>DanG
>
> car = 'cart, wagon'?
>
> LH
>
>>
>>On 6/14/2010 3:45 PM, Garson O'Toole 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
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>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.
>
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