Fearmongers, Warmongers Gather For Annual Mongering ConferenceThey get hatemongering in there too, of course, and close with a note about "next week's fish- and whoremongering conference in El Paso, TX." There's a good set of in part newer terms (let's not touch where or whether to use a hyphen ), like rumor-mongering, hope-mongering, disease-mongering, word-mongering, etc. Google around a little and you'll find doom-mongering, monger-mongering, and so much more.
But the Onion loves derivational productivity at a deeper level than that:
… fearmonger Gerald Sachs mongered. "Of course, with the current political and social climate, the main question is whether next year will be anywhere near as mongerly."Go Onion.
The Log has picked up this theme: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005505.html#more
ReplyDeletePullum apparently doesn't know about hope-mongering, word-mongering and some of the other newer ones.
I confess to a little disappointment that you didn't go into the history, which must have some wrinkles to it.