Inventory of libfix postings

(Long promised, but now delivered: an inventory of postings — including a few still in my “to blog on” list — on English libfixes, arranged roughly in the order of their appearance.)

Several postings look at the relationship between portmanteaus and libfixes, and several point out that many libfixes behave very much like elements of compounds rather than ordinary affixes. Several also note that many (though not all) of the libfixes are playful in character.

This is not an inventory of libfixes and things that might be libfixes, but an inventory of ones that have been posted on. Michael Quinion’s affixes site (here) has a number of others not covered here, and there are still more.

Prefixal elements are tagged PRE, suffixal ones POST.

1. POST –((e)t)eria

AMZ & GKP. 1987.  Plain morphology and expressive morphology.  BLS 13.330-40. (link) With a section on this libfix

2. POST –tacular and –tastic

BZ to ADS-L 1/21/05 (not yet blogged on)

3. POST –dar

LLog: ML, 11/25/06: Morphemedar (link)

LLog: AZ, 3/1/07: Get Fuzzy gets playful (link)

LLog: AZ, 5/12/07: Zippy’s suffixiness (link)

4. PRE bro- and man- (plus an assortment of portmanteaus)

AZBlog 12/27/08: Manecdotes and brobituaries (link)

5. PRE lingua- (and others, e.g. chem– and stat– (and maybe math-); and astro-, geo-, socio-, bio-, anthro-; and econo-, politico-, biblio– (‘biblical studies’); plus other variants of lingua-

LLog, AZ, 7/6/09: Linguablog (link)

6. POST -((o)r)ama  (with a mention of  -((e)t)eria)

AZBlog, 9/10/09: To the next level (link)

AZBlog, 2/15/10: orama-orama (link)

AZBlog, 11/18/10: Data points: Playful libfixes 1/18/10 (link)

7. PRE euro-

AZBlog, 10/11/09: Short shot #16: euro- words (link)

8. POST -(((t)r)e)preneur

AZBlog, 1/3/10: preneurs (link)

9. POST elements in general, mentioning –cide, –sphere, –aholic, -(er)ati

AZBlog, 1/19/10: twitter tweet (link)

10. POST –tard

AZBlog, 1/23/10: Libfixes (link): refers to World Wide Words #674, 1/23/10, on –tard, –naut, –flation

AZBlog, 1/24/10: One more –tard (link): on fucktard

11. PRE elements in my portmanteau file (not yet blogged on): Franken-, spokes–

12. POST –gate

LLog, GP, 2/2/10: Snowclonegate (link)

13. PRE pundo-, extracted from pundocracy/pundocrat, extended by Jon Lighter in ADS-L 6/30/10 to pundojournalist (apparently his innovation): not yet blogged on

14. POST –tariat as in logotariat

Economist blog (link): with references to LLoggers

15. POST –inator

LLog, ML, 11/11/10: X-inator (link)

16. PRE prosti- and POST –itute

LLog, BZ, 12/1/10: Frienditute (link)

17. POST –fest

AZBlog, 1/17/10: fests (link)

18. POST –ana

AZBlog, 1/17/11: Data points: libfixes 1/17/11 (link)

19. POST -cation

AZBlog, 4/15/11: Libfix fun: -cation (link)

20. POST –nomics and –omics

AZBlog, 4/18/11: Two libfixes sharing a spelling (link)

21. POST –cracy (also –cratic and –crat)

in Quinion’s list, here

AZBlog, 5/5/11: idiocracy (link)

22. POST –tini and –kini

AZBlog, 5/24/11: The marmaxi (link)

23. POST –zilla

AZBlog, 5/22/11: Portmanteau to libfix (link)

24. Several cases summarized (-dar, -nomics, -tini, -kini, -zilla, -cation)

AZBlog, 5/27/11: Portmanteau spawns libfix (link). In comments: -burger; the photo- of photojournalist, the tele- of telegenic, and the edu- of edutainment)