[Ads-l] WOTD

[Jonathan Lighter]

I like the way it rhymes with and contradicts "facilitates."

Will use it regularly.

JL


On Thu, Sep 9, 2021 at 11:42 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> None of the above.  ImpossiBILitate(s), with secondary stress on the POS,
> but primary on the antepenult, as with “impossiBILity”.
>
>
> > On Sep 9, 2021, at 10:17 PM, Chris Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET> wrote:
> >
> > Where would you put the stress on this? imPOSsibilates? imposSIbilates?
> > might for ever have imPOSsibilated?
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 9, 2021 at 4:14 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> >>> On Sep 9, 2021, at 8:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Quora.com:
> >>>
> >>> "The weight also would impossibilitate moving it to the front with
> >> trains."
> >>>
> >>> JL
> >>> --
> >>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> >> truth.”
> >>>
> >>
> >> Some precedents per the OED, including a royal one:
> >>
> >> 1633   T. Adams Comm. 2 Peter (ii. 14) 921   It [sc. covetousness]
> >> impossibilitates the entrance into heaven.
> >> 1646   King Charles I Let. in T. Carte Coll. Orig. Lett. (1735) III. 452
> >> I..would do nothing to impossibilitate ayde [printed adye] from thence.
> >> 1834   R. Southey Doctor II. 116   How many accidents might for ever
> have
> >> impossibilitated the existence of this incomparable work!
> >>
> >> The Quora poster was likely not in direct line to the throne.  Or,
> unlike
> >> Southey, a poet laureate (albeit one mocked by Lewis Carroll).
> >>
> >> Speaking of precedents—one wonders whether the coinage of this verb was
> an
> >> item in the regicides’ bill of attainder against the ill-fated Charlie.
> >>
> >> LH
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> > http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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