double whammy

[Laurence Horn]

Yes, I was thinking "friendlily" when I saw it, which is ruled out for the usual reasons. In any case, it's not just this writer--there are many google hits for "friendly remind(ed)".  One of those faute-de-mieux constructions, I suppose ("one of my friends' mother", "didn't used to",…).  

LH 

On Aug 30, 2014, at 7:08 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> i've pretty much lost track of this thread, but ...
> 
> On Aug 29, 2014, at 6:14 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
>> OK, I know we're up to the wazoo in cites of back-formed verbs.  But 
>> this one (last line below) still struck me as interesting, partly 
>> because it was addressed to linguists by (presumably) linguists (the 
>> from line is linguist at linguist.org) and partly because of the modifier 
>> involved; for me, "friendly" is not a possible adverb, so it remains an 
>> adjective even when what it modifies has back-formed itself into a verb. 
>> 
>> ...
>> -----------------------------------------------
>> For those of you who have NOT registered for the conference, we would
>> like to friendly remind you that the last day to register for the
>> conference is September 1, 2014.
> 
> another possibility is that the writer was intending "friendlily" but reduced it to "friendly" in order to avoid the (as James Thurber once put it) the "lily word".
> 
> arnold
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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