Talk:-ussy
RFD discussion: March–April 2022
The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process (permalink).
It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.
I saw that this entry was previously deleted, so I don't want to go recreating it willy nilly. However, it seems to me that it is a productive suffix, and to deserve an entry. Some documentation includes and , and there are quite a lot of examples that can be identified on social media. bussy and thrussy are on Wiktionary already (though bussy in particular is probably the model on which this suffix was created, rather than a use of this suffix). Thoughts? AllenY99 (talk) 15:27, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
- These look more like blends to me, as they are currently listed, too. Vininn126 (talk) 16:13, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
- @AllenY99: Just to explain the terminology: a blend is where you take two words and make a new word with parts from each of the two words. A suffix is a completely separate thing that you add to the end of something else. The obvious question that arises when discussing -ussy as a suffix: "what are we adding this to?". In the case of "bussy", all you've got is "b", which has absolutely no meaning or function by itself. It makes much more sense to interpret the whole phenomenon as a fashion for combining pussy with other words to make new words. The reason that they all have -ussy at the end is most likely that it's the most recognizable part of the original word, and it wouldn't really work at the beginning or middle of a new word. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- I think that's fair, though I think bussy and thrussy are more the words from which the pattern emerges. In words like vaginussy, earussy, cactussy, garfieldussy, it seems to resemble more a suffix. AllenY99 (talk) 17:43, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- @AllenY99: Just to explain the terminology: a blend is where you take two words and make a new word with parts from each of the two words. A suffix is a completely separate thing that you add to the end of something else. The obvious question that arises when discussing -ussy as a suffix: "what are we adding this to?". In the case of "bussy", all you've got is "b", which has absolutely no meaning or function by itself. It makes much more sense to interpret the whole phenomenon as a fashion for combining pussy with other words to make new words. The reason that they all have -ussy at the end is most likely that it's the most recognizable part of the original word, and it wouldn't really work at the beginning or middle of a new word. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- Keep deleted. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 12:10, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
- Keep deleted. I'm sure it's productive but it's not a suffix. Equinox ◑ 20:35, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
Kept deleted. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 05:40, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Fytcha @Metaknowledge, tagging you because I've seen you close a ton of RFDs. Are the recent ones supposed to be closed this quickly? I was expecting there to be a bit more discussion on this one because I think that it deserves to be somewhere, but maybe not a suffix. Same with the Royal Canadian Mounted Force and another one. I thought that RFDs had to be open for at least a month, unless they're snowball deleted (usually by an admin, as I rightfully got called out for doing so beforehand by @BD2412), not for only around 2 weeks or 10 days with only two delete votes. And it's rather interesting that they're only being closed when they're being deleted, even when another RFD nominated by the same user also 19 days ago has only "Keeps" (see: Sign languages), but yet hasn't been closed. (The same user has also accused me of being a hard inclusionist that only votes 'keep', not knowing how the project works, and more when it comes to RFDs, so that's another interesting layer on top of this) AG202 (talk) 06:33, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- As a side note, I really do want to hear more about how best to treat blend-makers like this even though they aren't directly suffixes. AG202 (talk) 06:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- There's no reason to close this after a mere 10 days. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 07:58, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed. Also it doesn’t seem to have been properly archived to Talk:-ussy. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:16, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- @AG202: Why must there be a special way to treat "blend-makers", other than the usual noting the source in an etymology? -- Haha, as usual, as soon as I try to find a counterexample, someone has actually made it. How do we feel about -preneur? Christ! Equinox ◑ 09:24, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- The category Cat:English words suffixed with -preneur is nice. Do we get an equivalent for blends? Cat:English blends of entrepreneur? This, that and the other (talk) 09:46, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- I don’t think we need a special type of category for blends. Such blends should be listed as derived terms under the words they derive from (such as entrepreneur), and that should be sufficient for people looking for such terms. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- One notable difference between the two approaches is that categorization with
{{af}}and its equivalents is automatic, whereas adding a word to a derived terms section requires manual effort, and people may be unaware of the practice, forget to do so, or be lazy. (I am guilty of this.) I'm not saying this is a sufficient reason to keep these blendy affix entries and categories, though. 70.172.194.25 16:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- One notable difference between the two approaches is that categorization with
- I don’t think we need a special type of category for blends. Such blends should be listed as derived terms under the words they derive from (such as entrepreneur), and that should be sufficient for people looking for such terms. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- The category Cat:English words suffixed with -preneur is nice. Do we get an equivalent for blends? Cat:English blends of entrepreneur? This, that and the other (talk) 09:46, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- There's no reason to close this after a mere 10 days. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 07:58, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- In case people are wondering, @AG202 referred to me above. We do not have any official rules about how soon or in what fashion editors are supposed to get rfd-failed entries deleted, so I (rightfully, at least according to me) went ahead and got them eliminated from this dictionary. The recent vote about RFD policy ended with no consensus, so editors closing nominations should use their own discretion. Nothing to fuss over: we are not a huge project like Wikipedia with thousands and thousands of volunteers, so no issues. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 12:24, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Inqilābī: Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Header — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- Okay, but this was a speedy kept deleted. There was enough discussion in my opinion. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 14:10, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- @Inqilābī: Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Header — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- As a side note, I really do want to hear more about how best to treat blend-makers like this even though they aren't directly suffixes. AG202 (talk) 06:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
- Kept deleted. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 11:42, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
ADS Word of the Year 2022
The suffix "-ussy" has been proclaimed as the 'Word of the Year' by the American Dialect Society: https://www.americandialect.org/2022-word-of-the-year-is-ussy I'm not saying the ADS have supreme authority, but they seem, at a glance, to carry a lot of legitimacy in regards to documenting the usage of vocabulary. VladVP (talk) 17:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
not a blend
The idea that it's a blend seems fallacious to me, as this only ever occurs as a suffix. If it were a so-called blend maker there would be just as many words like *pussoy where it behaves as a prefix. I might have done more to argue my point in last year's discussion, but I wasnt highly active at the time, and I tend to stay away from memes, as they come and go like the wind, and there isn't much point in fighting for a word that's going to fall out of fashion within years if not months of the discussion. —Soap— 08:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
RFD discussion: February 2024
The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
In a previous request for undeletion, there was consensus not to undelete -ussy. Since that discussion, -ussy was chosen as the American Dialect Society's 2022 Word of the Year and a Wikipedia article was created. Although there are few "durably archived" sources available, there are thousands of examples online clearly using the term as a true suffix (groundhog-ussy, donutussy, baristaussy, etc.). Therefore, I encourage you all to take a close look at User:Ioaxxere/-ussy, which contains all the best citations I could find, and decide whether it deserves a spot in our mainspace. Ioaxxere (talk) 15:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
- Undelete. I appreciate the effort to search for cites using the traditional definition of "suffix", though in my own opinion, and the opinion of several other linguists, it's already a suffix for better or for worse. We definitely need to have it tracked somewhere especially when it has such a widespread usage (and leaving it at its original term doesn't do it justice). I also appreciate the well-written entry, though the etymology may need to be trimmed eventually. AG202 (talk) 19:38, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
- Undelete, clearly in use as an explicit ("traditional") suffix as well as a blending element. I was thinking of nominating this myself the other day actually. This, that and the other (talk) 23:06, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
- Undelete per the above. Theknightwho (talk) 23:33, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
- Undelete based on the examples provided. My stance against its inclusion was always based on the grounds of bad morphological analysis - people confusing how blends works does not justify the inclusion of something as a suffix and any words formed through blending should not be categorized as being suffixed, but the proposal here shows much better examples of suffixation. Vininn126 (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
- Undelete 👀 Fay Freak (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
- Undelete. lattermint (talk) 21:28, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Undeleted. PUC – 20:04, 10 February 2024 (UTC)