Ben's rando, Virginia's retronyms

[Garson O'Toole]

Surely the following term must be added to this list of harsh
pejoratives: SpaghettiOs

More seriously (some of these are not truncations): freako, schizo,
loco, bozo, nutso, (fatso pattern mentioned earlier)

jacko and wacko jacko - nickname for Michael Jackson (Urban Dictionary)

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ben's rando, Virginia's retronyms
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Point taken.
>
> "Psycho" doesn't quite fit the pattern; it was originally short for
> "psychoneurotic," as anyone picking up the third volume of HDAS would be
> able to see for himself if such a volume existed. It dates back to World War
> I in that sense, but didn't become general and crazier for another
> twenty-five years.
>
> The -o of "wino" may be different, though "wino" goes back to the twenties.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 10:13 AM, 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: Ben's rando, Virginia's retronyms
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 8:28 AM -0400 10/31/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >Did I mention "convo" (conversation), heard a week or so ago? "To keep the
>> >convo going."
>> >
>> >This "-o" business has been going on in Australia more than here for at
>> >least fifty years.
>> >
>> >JL
>>
>> But with the pejorative flavor of the ones mentioned below?  There
>> may be a more general process of truncation + -o as in "convo" that I
>> think is not the same as the human -o slurs involved in "rando" and
>> its "wino/wacko/weirdo/pscyho"-type sponsors.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 11:57 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:      Ben's rando, Virginia's retronyms
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >>  In his "On Language" column in this weekend's Times Sunday Magazine,
>> >>  Ben Z writes about student slang, citing the master (Connie Eble) and
>> >>  others, and discusses "rando" (for a sketchy random stranger).
>> >>  Something that strikes me about this form is that while looking
>> >>  superficially as though it's formed from truncating "random", "rando"
>> >>  is yet another derogatory -o label, as in "weirdo", "fatso", "wino",
>> >>  "psycho", and such.  I figure there must be a paper on these
>> >>  somewhere in American Speech but a quick web search instead pulled up
>> >>  this summary by Mikael Parkvall on Linguist List:
>> >>  http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-360.html.  (some interesting
>> >>  cross-linguistic observations therein)
>> >>
>> >>  Two pages later, Virginia Heffernan's touching eulogy to the
>> >>  old-fashioned telephone is rife with retronyms, from the standard
>> >>  ("analog landline telephone") to the recondite ("wireful"), and
>> >>  "rotary" must be in there somewhere.  Reminds me--this time of year
>> >>  you can't follow football without hearing more than you ever wanted
>> >>  to know about the "human polls".
>> >>
>> >>  LH
>> >>
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>> >
>> >
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>> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
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>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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