[Ads-l] nounified adjectives revisited

[George Thompson]

Taking pity on you-all, I had sent this to JL only.
"Is it too much to want someone to bring the funny in a movie about a comic?
 "
Today's NYTimes, opening sentence of Manohla Dargis' review of Robert De
Niro's movie.

I note Ben Yagoda's contribution.

GAT


On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 10:15 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> From Paul Krugman’s column in today’s Times:
>
> ========
> As you may recall — or maybe you don’t, with the crazy coming so thick and
> fast — the White House first seemed to say that it would impose a 20
> percent tariff on Mexico, but may have been talking about a tax plan,
> proposed by Republicans in the House, that would do no such thing; then
> said that it was just an idea; then dropped the subject, at least for now.
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/building-a-wall-
> of-ignorance.html
> ========
>
> “Crazy” as a noun is probably one of the conversions we’ve discussed, but
> if it isn’t it could have been.  I’m wondering whether the use of the
> adjective-in-noun’s-clothing in such cases, as opposed to the
> well-established noun already on the lexical shelf (“craziness”) is that
> it’s…stronger?  More salient? Trendy?  (Although Krugman doesn’t strike me
> as the type who goes for trendy...)  Any speculation?
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- better known as The Dunghill Toadstool:
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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