Re: Neologism may get confusing sometimes...

From: "Fior Avant" <chiph@...>
> The real point is: when we want to say something has a got style,
> we say it has got style/ a lot of style/ is fashionable. To me
> ( and then I say again ) ´stylish´, may also be like ´girlish´,
> ´greenish´ rather than ´fashionable´; though the first meaning
> of the word really is ´as having style´.
[snip]
> 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, "ish" can go to a noun or to an adjective...

I suppose when it goes to an adjective the meaning has to generalize some:  you
can say something is green, but if you have to say it's *like* green (greenish)
then it sounds fuzzy.

When it goes to a noun it doesn't have to lose any strength (Finn > Finnish,
style > stylish, boy > boyish) --the adjective just takes on a meaning from the
noun: it's probably more concretely meaningful to say something is "like a Finn"
than "like green"....


    *Muke!
--
http://www.frath.net/