Oafly Folly

Oafly Folly


There's nothing wrong with the word "brotherly", and of course the word 'sisterly" sounds right and makes sense, and then there's "friendly" which is OK (except in Texas where the license plates said "Drive friendly!") but the next thing you know, everyone's realized that you can make a new word out of almost any noun by tacking an ly on the end of it, and no one bothers to look at the frequently freakish result and ask whether you should have done that, and whether it's too late to just sit on the thing and smother it before the children awaken and are frightened by it!

As my friend Debra N. pointed out,

I have been practicing sneering since I was childly, and find many opportunities to pedantly lecture in my parently role. "Rocket scientistly"?!! Surely you act jesterly. (Oh no! it's getting easier to do! I feel myself moving sliderly down a slippery slopely path.)
Co-conspiratorly,
Deb

On the other hand, I think the wealth of examples presented here, mostly culled from the Internet, suggest that even informal writing (let alone speech!) is vastly richer than the standard vocabulary preserved in the archives.

I have tried to avoid some of the cheaper compound coinages, such as browserly-challenged or penisly-endowed

Herewith, some gangly dangly new-fangly words you may find hardly to swallow!


Last modified on 12 June 2022.