h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In that case, comic is a noun. But is there an adjective "comic"? According to the dictionary (Merriam Webster) there is.

comic:

1: of, relating to, or marked by comedy
2: causing laughter or amusement: funny
3: of or relating to comic strips

comical:

1 obsolete: of or relating to comedy
2: causing laughter esp. because of a startlingly or unexpectedly humorous impact

This seems to suggest a distinction between comic and comical which I would not have noticed.

Gnomon, we must have both been looking at the m-w entry on comic/comical simultaneously!

Your definition of comic misses its use as a noun, as in a stand up comic.

Going back to a previous post, ironicalness is one of the most hideous words I've ever seen. I literally can't think of a word as clumsy!

Yes - the irony of it!!!


Here's another one for your collection, jwf: organic. I've yet to hear or read "organical" but I can imagine that someone somewhere will eventually coin it. After all, the adverb is "organically", or is it "organicly"?

Organically, as in "the vegetables were grown organically."

Was Chemical Ali a chemic?

or Alchemic?

Good point!
Have you ever heard the word 'vegetability'?
As in having vegetable-like qualities ?
Oh the joys of the English language!

Stupendous! Literature marked for the future.

Or would it just be a sly metaphor for something else…

(nudge wink eeek!)

'Eeek' - now there's interesting.

Oddly, heretic and heretical seem to be deserving of 1 entry each in the dictionary.
Although thankfully we do not seem to have gone as far as hereticity!

Just checked on Bionic/Bionical. No such word as bionical (well, except for those cheap plaggy toys!).

p.s. where does Het come from? As in Het up? m-w freebie is abridged and doesn't show it

I think we should write our language!
We have some great ideas for words and word play.

is the old past participle of 'to heat'. We would now say "heated".

I don't know, but I do know Bolshy comes from Bolshevik.

Duncan on anothere thread is of the opinion that a local derby can only be so called if it's played on one or other of the teams' home grounds. So Grimsby versus Scunthorpe at Lincoln wouldn't be one

Not true!
You can have local derbies in the cups at neither teams' grounds. I seem to remember a derby between Arsenal and Tottenham in the FA cup (I think it was a semi final) that was played in the midlands for neutrality.

This is such an informative enjoyable thread..

I always thought that 'het up' the het part was derived from hectic...which also means feverish, flushed etc...

I say it's an obsolete past particple (cf to meet, met, met)

... of heat, like WS says. Sorry, didn't finish sentence!

Thanks.

On a roll now!
I'm all het up as they say.

drastic, drastical, drastically
elastic, elastical, elastically
plastic, plastical, plastically

There seems to be no rule. Sometimes the 'ical' is a legitimate adjective and sometimes it is a non-existant step between the root noun and the adverbial form 'ically'.

electric, electrical, electrically
stoic, stoical, stoically
caustic, caustical, caustically
rhetoric, rhetorical, rhetorically

And sometimes when the word ending in 'ic' is already an adjective and there is no 'ical', just a great leap forward to the averbial 'ically'.

hermetic
energetic
frenetic

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these fickle 'ical's and apparently there is no general theory or rule to govern them. It would seem to be governed completely by cultural (learn by ear) usage. If so, the more hideous 'ical' variants will inevitably be created, just as we have licence to create all sorts of ugly '-ness's like the much hated 'ironicalness' mentioned above.

~jwf~

The addition of 'al', 'ally' to words seems to have come to prominence recently courtesy of Bush!