Engineering amazing

[Jonathan Lighter]

I just saw the ad. I hadn't read the thread.

My sole interpretation was that "amazing" is intended as noun.

As someone said, this nominalization of adjectives is extremely common in
advertising, and in my experience it's been, say, "not uncommon," in speech
for 30 or 435 years.

There's another ad right now that has three or four in a row. Will note it
when I see it again.

IIRC, Dillard identified adjectival nominalization as a notable feature of
AAVE. Cf. "God don't like ugly."

JL



On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 2:44 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Engineering amazing
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ram Tough==Tough As [a] Ram~~Tough Like [a] Ram (with Ram==Dodge).
> Actually,
> interpreting "engineering" as a gerund, would add one more variant
> interpretation to "engineering amazing"--amazing engineering. But, I
> suspect
> that most people would see a verb there (participle).
>
> VS-)
>
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com
> >wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm not sure whether to top-post or bottom-post now, but I don't see the
> > connection between "engineering amazing" (vt + adj) and "Ram tough" (noun
> +
> > adj).
> >
> > Benjamin Barrett
> > Seattle, WA
> >
> > On Sep 15, 2011, at 1:39 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Surely there are constructions galore of the form Noun + {Adjectivey
> > thing}, particularly in advertising? "POM wonderful"? "the coffee
> > delicious"? "Ram Tough"?
> >
>
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