Re: Neologism may get confusing sometimes...

En réponse à Fior Avant <chiph@...>:

>
> I think that´s why I said that... We say ´greenish´ when something has a
> green ´caracter´ but isn´t totally green. At that moment ´stylish´ hit
> me as something less-than-fashionable.
>
> So my question is: Am I wrong, unformtunate in my saying, and ´stylish´
> can possibly only mean fashionable? Or may it be used to diminish
> someting involved in trend as well?
>
Well, I'm not a philologist but the question is interesting, because something
happened like that with the English name of one of my languages. I had first
given to my language Narbonósc the English name Narbonish, but someone pointed
out that the suffix -ish had a pejorative resonance to him, and he found the
name Narbonese nicer (which I agreed, so now Narbonósc is Narbonese :)) ).

The point is that what threw you off is probably the ending -ish. Since it's
often used in the meaning "kind of (like)...", it often takes a pejorative
sense (because when something is only "kind of...", it's not complete or
correct, and thus wrong). "Greenish" often means something which is not of a
nice green colour, "girlish" is behaving "kind of like a girl", and that's
usually not a compliment :)) . Though its first meaning is not pejorative, it
seems to take this meaning slowly, and some speakers are more sensitive to it
than others.

So basically you're not wrong, and there are other people to agree with you.
But it doesn't mean that other people who disagree with you are wrong. They are
just less sensitive to the pejorative meaning that -ish seems to take. Not
everyone has the same perception of the meaning of words. Or else,
misunderstandings couldn't be possible!! :))

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.