Yags: the story thus far

[Cecil Ward]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Larry Trask wrote

> Indeed, though such formations are far from dead.  My name is 'Larry',
and I am often addressed as 'Laz' or 'Lazza' by my British friends.
My British wife addresses her best friend, Marian, as 'Maz' or 'Mazza'.
The British politician Michael Heseltine is commonly referred to as
'Hezza' in the satirical magazine Private Eye -- though I doubt that
his friends call him this.

> I think this may be Australian, too, since I've encountered Australian
'Bazza' for 'Barry', at least in print.

There are a couple of interesting issues here. What strikes me about the "-a" ending which is a familiarity/informality marker is how quickly it became productive following the rise of its use by the English media in connection with "Gazza" for Paul Gascoigne, a footballer. "Hezza" suddenly appeared shortly afterwards. A year or two later, I was astonished to hear my wife, a singer, mention that she was due to perform "Mozza req." (Mozart's requiem!). I find it amazing that this process was so rapid.

Around the same time, my wife was referring to her friend Marion as "Mazza" too.

And so here we have a case of word "shape" becoming a carrier of semantic baggage, coming to carry a connotation of the speaker's familiarity with or affection for the referent. Makes you think about cases where, say, a new diminutive affix emerges.