some _-ster_ items

[Jonathan Lighter]

In the early '80s I noted that "-ster" was being used humorously to
create nonce nicknames based on one's given name.  HDAS III should
have exx.

For example, David Barnhart might be referred to as "the Davester."
(Not that he  necessarily was.)  Or addressed as "Davester," though I
think direct address was less common.

It works best with monosyllabic names.

It's still around, AFAIK.

JL

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:16 PM, 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:      Re: some _-ster_ items
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jan 30, 2012, at 6:30 PM, David Barnhart wrote:
>
>> Not all of these are new; neither are they all negative:
>>
>> dirty-trickster...
>
> nice, but start with Michael Quinion's entry:
>
> http://www.affixes.org/s/-ster.html
>
> arnold
>
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