Belvedere-y

Sun Mar 25 01:00:18 UTC 2012

On Mar 24, 2012, at 8:51 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> Truthy, hopey, changey, rapey... I know the -y suffix is both productive
> (OED -y suffix1 -- the other five -y suffixes are not relevant because
> they deal with different parts of speech) and -- pardon me for coining a
> term here -- quasi-productive. By the latter I mean something that
> produces, usually mockingly, an ad hoc N-y adjective or adverb that can
> best be described as "kind of having the quality of N" (where "kind of"
> is taken with the subtext "not really"). I refer to it as
> "quasi"-productive because the N-y nonce forms that they produce aren't
> really well-formed words and are only used as temporary placeholders,
> frequently loaded with sarcasm, and often spelled with the explicit
> hyphen ("-y"), notwithstanding the success of "truthy". They are not
> intended to remain a fully functioning part of the lexicon.

In a 1996 paper on -ee in English published in Language, Chris Barker calls that nominalizing suffix (as in e.g. adulteree, best-wishee, fantasizee, festschriftee, harvestee, implantee, ticklee,...) "robustly semi-productive", and more recently I've borrowed the term to refer to un-verbs (uninvite, unfollow, unerase, unkiss, unhappen, unfuck,...). 

> Michael
> Adams referred to such infixes

Why infixes?  They look pretty suffixy to me.

LH

> as "infinitely productive".
> (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1538)
> 
> This goes beyond even the ultimate meaning listed in the OED:
> 
>> 4. From the early years of the 19th cent. the suffix has been used
>> still more freely in nonce-words designed to connote such
>> characteristics of a person or thing as call for condemnation,
>> ridicule, or contempt; hence such adjs. as /beery/, /catty/,
>> /churchy/, /jumpy/, /newspapery/, /piggy/, /tinny/.
> 
> Catty, jumpy, piggy and tinny are perfectly usable words /today/, having
> lost much of the "condemnation, ridicule, or contempt", while beery,
> churchy and newspapery appear to be much closer to the ones above. I
> suppose, it's just a question of degrees.
> 
> The reason I comment on this is the immediate demise of a Belvedere
> Vodka mini-ad on Facebook. Belvedere routinely puts up composed photos
> in a square frame that include some kind of promotional slogan, e.g.,
> "Spring has sprung and I'm ______"; "Forget the water cooler. All
> offices should have a bar."; "Raise your glass if you enjoy liquid
> lunch";  "Check out inside Belvedere/They've got the looks, we'll give
> you the skill", etc. That last one is highly suggestive, but not as much
> as the one that has been scrubbed: "Unlike some people, Belvedere always
> goes down smoothly".
> 
> http://goo.gl/nDpWe
>> We didn't think it was possible to reach new heights in regards to
>> offensive alcohol ad campaigns, but Belvedere swept all prior
>> competitors earlier today when the company posted an astounding new
>> advertisement, depicting a man gleefully grabbing a woman from behind
>> while she opens her mouth in horror, clearly terrified out of her
>> mind. Like, there is no way anyone could argue that even .001 percent
>> of her is eager to give this sleazy dude a blow job. "Unlike some
>> people, Belvedere always goes down smoothly," the ad proclaimed.
>> Facebook comments ranged from "tell the cry-babies to shut up... this
>> picture is AWESOME!!!" to "this kinda looks like rape." Belvedere
>> apparently decided to side with the "kinda" camp, because the photo
>> disappeared from their Facebook page and Twitter account within an
>> hour. An apology followed soon after: "We apologize to any of our fans
>> who were offended by our recent tweet. We continue to be an advocate
>> of safe and responsible drinking."
> 
> Apparently, the initial apology was not sufficient, and Belvedere added
> another five hours later.
> 
>> I am Jason Lundy, SVP of Global Marketing for Belvedere.
>> Unfortunately a Facebook &Twitter posting was made today that has
>> offended many of our fans and followers -- and indeed the people who
>> work here at Belvedere. The post is absolutely inconsistent with our
>> values and beliefs and in addition to removing the offensive post we
>> are committed to making sure that something like this doesn't happen
>> again.
>> As an expression of our deep disappointment and regret, we are making
>> a charitable donation to a women's support cause. We deeply apologize
>> to our fans & followers.
> 
> I'm not going to debate whether the picture or the "creative" use of "go
> down" was responsible for the outrage, but the reason I put it here was
> the Jezebel header that contained one of the words I listed in the first
> line above.
> 
>> The Rapey Belvedere Vodka Ad That Just Got Pulled
> 
> To make things even more interesting, someone posted a comment with
> another post, after the offensive post had been removed.
> 
> http://www.facebook.com/belvederevodka?sk=wall
>> *Stephen Smith* you guys are really white trashing up my favorite
>> vodka so please take your bickering to myspace.com where the children play
> 
> At least, IMO, verbing "white trash" is interesting. So I thought I'd
> mention it too.
> 
>    VS-)
> 
> PS: A couple of LanguageLog links
> 
> hopey/changey
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2112
> 
> truthy/truthiness
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002757.html
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002764.html
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002769.html
> 
> And more generally on -y
> 
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002831.html
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1538     (cited above)
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004260.html      (on
> X-y/i-ness)
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004489.html
> (same as above)
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org