Gricy, Gricish

by JLS
for the GC

Kramer is referring ("Comment on "unsphexishness"" -- re Quinion's World Wide Words) to the -ish/y dichotomy:

"I'd also do some surgery on
the wasp's tail, replacing "ish"
with its cuter cousin "y." The
inspiration is Ogden Nash: Sphexish
is lexish, but sphexy is sexy. ...
Anyway, visiting is Something sort
of Grandish."

------

Where he hyperlinks, with my interspersed commentary:

Something sweet,
Something sort of grandish
Sweeps my soul
When thou art near.

------- versus, "Something sort of grand". Oddly, Grice's executor (literary, that is) is R. E. Grandy.


My heart feels so sugar candish

------- variation on "Candy/Grandy".

My hand feels so ginger beer.
Something so dareish
So I don't careish,
Stirs me from limb to limb.

-------------dareish, dary, -- cfr. daring.
-------------careish -- cfr. 'care _for_ fish'.

It's so terrifish, magnifish, delish.
To have such an amorish glamorish.
We could be oh, so bride and groomish
Skies could be so bluish blue.

------------- bluish blue.
--- Cfr. Grice, "Senses should not be multiplied beyond necessity" -- apres Ockham, "_Entia_ non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. The idea is:

'blue' has only ONE sense: viz. the colour.
'bluish blue' trades on the metaphor:

------ I got the right to sing the blues.
--------------- (as per song by Sophie Tucker --, i.e. I possess the permission to musically render this genre --, implicature: because I am sad.)

Why 'blue' acquired the metaphorical 'use' (or 'meaning' -- never 'sense') sad saddens me, oddly.

----


Life could be so love in bloomish,
If my ishes could come true.

----- In a Gricean rewrite: "People are too bound to linguistic conventions. The author is expressing his counterfactual desire (his 'ish' rather than 'wish') that if people were allowed to speak as freely as they feel like, implicatures would perhaps be a thing of the past."

---

Thou art sweet,
Thou art sort of grandish,
Thou outlandish cavalier.
From now on, we're hand in handish
Romeo and Guinevere
Thou'rt so adorish
Toujours l'amourish.
I'm so cherchez la femme.
Why should I vanquish,
Relinquish, resish,
When I simply relish this swellish condish.
I might be manishish or mouseish

------- interesting formations. Versus 'manny', manly, and mousey, as per refrain. The source of this NOT being Leoncavallo's Pagliacci -- "What am I? A man -- or a clown?". In Leoncavallo, the implicature is odd: he happens to be a man AND a clown, the singer. The 'disjunction' "man or mouse", however, seems more 'exclusive'.

I might be a fowl or fish,
But with thee I'm Eisenhowzish.
Please accept my propasish
You're under my skinish,
So please be give-inish
Or it's the beginish of the finish of me.

----- Etymological note: it all seems to derive from Indo-European 'isk'. So, indeed, 'ish' sounds pretty archaic, and I agree with Kramer that '-y' is sexier. "-y" is ALSO Anglo-Saxon ("'Twas brillig and the...". But there is, here, indeed, a different _sense_.

First, we have to consider adjectives having sense. It makes sense to speak of NOUNS having senses. But recall that for the Latins, and indeed the earlier Greeks, 'onoma' (and nomen) stood for noun AND adjective.

Nine o'clock?
Let's say nineish.

---- It may be argued that 'nineish' INCLUDES 'nine'. "Nineish" would mean, slighly before, nine o'clock, and slightly _after_ nine o'clock". Cfr. the meaning in oratio obliqua and appointment making:

"It was nine o'clock when the volcano erupted."
"Nine o'clock sharp?"
"Nineish, let's say."

-----

"I'll meet you at nine o'clock"
"Sharp?"
"Nineish, surely."

----

I would think that the context should perhaps provide the clue as for any divergence in the implicature of '-ish'.

One may need to revise Indo-European words (not necessarily English) that make use of the -isk suffix to draw, perhaps a general conclusion. Is Anglo-Saxon '-ig', that gives, -y, also Indo-European? I hope so. And so on.