[Ads-l] healthier, n.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Some earlier (and familiar) exx.:

Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean."

"Beauty is only skin-deep, but ugly is to the bone."

JL

On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:42 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

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> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: healthier, n.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "It=E2=80=99s also what inspired me to write The Better Man Project, a
> book=
>  about
> the 2,476 small changes you can make to improve your life today. ...The
> cumulative effect of daily better begins to add up and multiply. Turns out,
> better rolls downhill."
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/health/17-easy-ways-to-live-longer-120121110498.html
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 7:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
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> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: healthier, n.
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >
> > From the same commercial:
> >
> > "After all, healthier doesn't happen all by itself. It has to be earned."
> > Etc., etc.
> >
> > Cf.
> >
> > *Bigger/ better/ newer/ dumber doesn't happen all by itself.
> >
> > In older exx. the nominalized adj. seems to be conceived of  as an
> abstra=
> ct
> > quality. In the newer ones, it is considerably reified.
> >
> > The evident uncertainty about the meaning of "Engineering amazing" on the
> > similar thread last year about nominalization certainly suggests a new
> > development.
> >
> > And just yesterday I heard these two exx. of the nominalization of the
> > positive, which is similarly reified. (I thought it was unnecessary too
> > keep noting these - it's a grammatical rather than a lexicographical
> matt=
> er
> > - but perhaps I was wrong.):
> >
> > Animal Planet promo: "Your daily dose of cute!"
> >
> > Fabrese commercial: "It smells like a field of awesome!"
> >
> > I believe I first encountered this sort of construction in Joey Lee
> > Dillard's _Black English_.  It seemed weird to me at the time, and IIRC
> > Dillard implied it was an AAVE characteristic only. Now I hear something
> > along those lines nearly every day, though mostly (n.b.) in TV
> commercial=
> s.
> >
> > As Larry reminds us, the nominalization process itself is old, but it has
> > expanded its semantic range and only very recently become popularly
> > productive.
> >
> > I would not expect to see *any* of the examples discussed - or of
> countle=
> ss
> > others - used without humor in many formal contexts.
> >
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 4:18 AM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: healthier, n.
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> > >
> > > =3DE2=3D80=3D8BJSB:  << Where can I go to take one?  I want to be a
> bet=
> ter.>>
> > > WB:  You should learn from your betters.=3DE2=3D80=3D8B
> > >
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
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> ."
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> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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