It's amaze

[Benjamin Barrett]

On Dec 9, 2013, at 9:33 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 11:55 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>>
>> In a new Jack-in-the-Box commercial with Rachel Grate as the social
>> media intern who can't comprehend the world without the Internet, Grate
>> says "it's amaze" to which Jack says, "-ing."
>>
>> I can't find the commercial online yet, but I saw it a couple of times today
>> as a smartphone commercial.
>>
>> September 19, 2005 by Jen (jennifer_o_jenny),
>> http://newbabynews.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html
>> -----
>> Instead of saying "It was amazing" she says "It was amaze". Every single
>> time she says it like that. I have to bite my tounge not to correct her. I don't
>> know if she's saying "amaze" or "a maze" but either way it's wrong and
>> makes me want to lunge across the table screaming "AMAZING AMAZING
>> AMAZING!" just to get her to say it right. It's strange how something so
>> small can drive you so nuts. It's amaze really.
>> -----
>
> Adjectival "amaze" is also the basis for "amazeballs", a contender in
> the Most Unnecessary category at ADS WOTY 2011, covered in the Spring
> 2012 installment of "Among the New Words": http://bit.ly/ATNW87-1

Thank you for this kind follow-up. I saw "amaze balls" and "amazeballs" when Googling but thought it was some sort of product name based on the capitals often used.

Based on Jack's jaded response, I doubt this is going to catch on, but it seems analogous to "invite" for "invitation" and other changes that have been discussed here, and it seems possible as a precursor to other -ing adjective shortenings. A finding of "amaze" to mean "amazed" as the other part of this equation would also be interesting, though other processes can cause the -d drop, so diagnosis would not be easy.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA

Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos

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