Thursday, May 24, 2007

Nouning isn't always bad

Last night, Jon Stewart talked about the empussification of the Democrats, of course on the issue of funding for the ongoing slaughter in Iraq. He set the stage with a couple of references to the Dems as pussies; otherwise it probably wouldn't have been clear to a lot of people.

I know pussified 'lame, weak, effeminate', whatever the historical connection to pusillanimous may be. But the participle makes a verb to pussify a necessary step from point A to point B. To make it mean 'somebody who has had this done to them', you need the em-, I guess. From there, I guess, it must be just one step to his noun.

What a tangled derivational web we weave:
pussy (fig.) > pussify > empussify > empussified, empussification.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. V: I would beg to differ: pussy (fig.) > pussify > empussify > empussified OR > empussification. But then I like to hold to my cherished beliefs in things like derivation inside inflection. Signed, A Student of Morphology

Mr. Verb said...

Oh my god, I can't believe I did that ... it's been fixed.