[lit-ideas] Re: linguistic productivity
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:14:56 +0000 (GMT)
In addition to acknowledgg var. solecisms [eg "its for "it's"], Mr. Burgess
wishes me to make clear that "passing on" is vulgar and ambiguous - should have
written "channelling".
Â
D
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From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, 19 November 2012, 18:51
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: linguistic productivity
Re: "prove to be temporary": my bet would be that 'omnishambles' will not catch
on with the general public - in contrast to, say, 'clusterf__'. Its use as a
vogue word by the media is partly due to be it being inoffensive and lending
itself to the sort of puns mentioned in Julie's post, as well as having cachet
because TTOI [series four] has just finishedÂa successfulÂtv run. But its too
clever by half, in an irritating way, to make it into general conversation and
endure there. In a comedy like TTOI its a fine enough coinage but, like many in
that series, attempts to use it in wider lifeÂwould beÂlikely met with
hostility.
Â
On the other hand it could become, like '-gate' as in 'Watergate', a coinage
that endures at the hands of media folk looking to jazz up their copy - but
here the suspicion remains that it lacks the flexibility and simplicity ofÂ
'-gate'. Nor is it a coinage with a well-recognised provenance in the mind of
the public. RomneyshamblesÂis a fine punÂbut already the 'Scomni' is stretching
it, and how many more puns are apt to be derived from the phrase?
Â
Donal
passing on the thoughts of Anthony Burgess
who quite like the Joycean wit of the coinage but since changed his mind
From: Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 17 November 2012, 18:43
Subject: [lit-ideas] linguistic productivity
From Qunion's "World Wide Words"
<<End of the year showÂNo sooner had the smoke and din of Guy Fawkes Day
subsided than Oxford Dictionaries announced its Word of the Year 2012. I swear
such annual publicity exercises are, like Christmas advertising, shifting
earlier in the calendar. Oxfordâs choice isÂomnishamblesÂ(a word previouslyÂ
featured here). It is defined as âa situation that has been comprehensively
mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculationsâ. One
reason for the choice is its linguistic productivity: not only have we had the
adjectiveÂomnishambolicÂbut also derived forms, includingÂRomneyshamblesÂfor
the tactless comments on Londonâs ability to host a successful Olympic Games by
the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Another isÂScomnishambles, a
Scottish omnishambles, coined in October when the Scottish government had to
admit it hadnât sought legal advice on whether an independent Scotland could
join the European Union. As
Oxford Dictionaries points out, the word may prove to be temporary and never
join other coinages in dictionaries.>>
Julie Campbell
Julie's Music & Language Studio
1215 W. Worley
Columbia, MO Â65203
573-881-6889
http://www.facebook.com/JuliesMusicLanguageStudio
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