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Wednesday, June 25, 2008 12:45 PM
I love that making nice-nice. I'm a sucker for this sort of reduplication(?) in English, whether it's meant to clarify (as in "he drives a car-car") or — as is presumably the case here — merely there for emphasis (like my friend who says "multiple multiple times").
And then there's that famous Sidney Morgenbesser story:
In the 1950's, the British philosopher J.L. Austin came to Columbia to present a paper about the close analysis of language. He'd just explained that, although two negatives make a positive, nowhere is it the case that two positives make a negative, when from the audience a familiar nasal voice muttered a dismissive, "Yeah, yeah."
(Also humorous but completely unrelated: I just learned that the heart of rock and roll is not Topeka, but rather still beatin'. Mondegreen ho!)
Thanks for your comment on prescriptivism, Dan. As for this reduplication issue, I've considered this idea with friends after a phonology class we once had. English doesn't seem too keen on them, but there is one that we, at least, believed to be an example of reduplication:
"Do you like him, or do you like-like him?"
As I'm sure you know, many African languages use reduplication even as a derivational morpheme, so it's extreme in their use, unlike in ours.
MCS at
June 26, 2008 10:57 AM
In the South, where "Coke" can mean any type of soda, I often had to order a "Coke-Coke" to make it clear that what I wanted was a Coca-Cola in particular.
P.S.: I was in college before I realized "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" wasn't about an affair. Really.
Maybe one person makes nice, and two people together make nice-nice.
Sounds a bit childish to me (but then so does 'makes nice').
An episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" offers this advice: You have to make the nice.
Thought you might enjoy this piece on reduplication:
http://www.good.is/?p=14517
Think reactive, not reactionary