blogress

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/10/2012 11:35 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>On Mar 10, 2012, at 11:09 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > But isn't it just the -er suffix -- "forming derivative ns. with the
> > general sense 'a man who has to do with (the thing denoted by the
> > primary n.)'"
>
>isn't that too general a gloss?  why not "one that ___s"? (since
>instrumentals as well as agents are possible, as in cookers,
>blenders, choppers, food-processors, etc.)

Your quarrel here, Larry, is with the OED, not me.  :-)


> > -- that one is concerned with?
> >     actor -- actress
> >     blogger --  blogress
> >     troller [not "troll"] -- trolless
> >     monster -- monstrous
>
>There are many attestations for both "monstress" (including a comic
>book hero(ine) of that name) and "monsteress" (as in "Cookie
>Monsteress", "sexy monsteress", inter al.). Perhaps the version with
>the extra syllable is motivated by the desire to avoid homonymy with
>the adjective "monstrous".  "Bloggeress" exists too, but is vastly
>outnumbered by "blogress", which comes complete with expected puns
>("A pilgrim's blogress").

I was of course trying to be humerous with monstrous.

Joel


>LH
>
>
> > Therefore I'm not concerned about "alien".
> >
> > In passing, "blogress" has an added appeal for me -- a hint of
> anti-progress.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > At 3/10/2012 05:35 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >> http://goo.gl/Bq2lj
> >>> The implication is that by treating Fluke with disrespect, Landsburg
> >>> has behaved unethically. That's bunk, as blogress Ann Althouse
> >>> (herself a professor) points out: ...
> >>
> >> Turns out to be, unsurprisingly, fairly common, even though the gendered
> >> version was, of course, created by analogy. I guess, the suffix remains
> >> productive. Now, what's the female version of "troll"? "monster"?
> >> "alien"? I have no doubt that future antropolinguists, investigating
> >> Prehistoric 21st Century English, will reconstruct them the same way we
> >> reconstruct Proto-Polynesian words.
> >>
> >>    VS-)
> >>
> >> PS: Yes, if anyone's having any doubts, most of this post--aside from
> >> the citation--is meant to be a joke. The citation is quite real.
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org