I submit that the shortest autological word is 'a' and the longest (excluding that inkhorn
nonce-word hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian), floccinaucinihilipilification-the action or habit of estimating as worthless' [OED]"
156) To test stress assignment predictability, the author reports the results of a
nonce-word test he conducted to determine if native speakers can predict it reliably (pp.
Nevertheless, this productivity appears to be quite limited: overgeneralizations are quite rare, in spite of the fact that the system is highly irregular and hence affords many opportunities for error; and in
nonce-word experiments, children often use the citation form in grammatical contexts which require the genitive.
(III, 50-77) In line 76 we find the god qualified as copronyme (III, 76), a
nonce-word forged from the Greek kopros, excrement.
As a
nonce-word, blog rot has more going for it than just assonance and the one-two punch of short one-syllable words; it also recalls link rot, the well-established term that describes the tendency of links on the World Wide Web to go bad over time (as web pages are taken down or moved).
Probably, the purest sort of morphotactic transparency is most typically observed in
nonce-word formations.
SCHTROUMPFFED a
nonce-word based on Schtroumpff, variant of 'schtroumpf', French for 'smurf' (see 12 Letters).
In my view, in the analysis of
nonce-word tests--including mine presented in the following section--several questions arise: (i) to what extent do the exact figures have to be considered?
A variant square is possible using TRESTLED (OED), EMOTIONS (OED) and SETALITE, a
nonce-word found on p 583 of Finnegans Wake (1939), by James Joyce ("O, O, her fairy setalite!").
With increasing significance it has become semantically specialised to function as a productive morpheme in
nonce-words coined out of admired groups'/singers' names, thereby creating a whole new onomastic "microsystem" within music fandom.
The results are often overwrought, even precious: "I am angel, addict, catherine wheel - a piece of work/ On fire spinning sparks from Lourdes to Alexandria." To my taste, Brock-Broido's merging of Dickinsonian and Hopkins-like language -
nonce-words, hyphenations and archaisms - often results in lines that glitter too brightly with their own cleverness, as in: "The sedative of frost composes/Its infinity of dormant melodramas// On the glass." This sort of rhetorical flourish (with a nod to Coleridge) draws attention mainly to Brock-Broido's own artifice.