# Partial word suffixes

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partial-word-suffixes/629274>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 24, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partial-word-suffixes/629274 "2012-07-24T19:55:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![sco3tt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@sco3tt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sco3tt)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partial-word-suffixes/629274/61 "2012-08-05T18:57:14Z")

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Per wikipedia:

> [@](#):
>
> The word—sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced as lollapalootza or lalapaloosa— or “lallapaloosa” (P.G. Wodehouse - “Heart of a Goof”) dates from a late 19th/early 20th century American idiomatic phrase meaning “an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.” In time the term also came to refer to a large lollipop. Farrell, searching for a name for his festival, liked the euphonious quality of the now antiquated term upon hearing it in a Three Stooges short film.

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**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partial-word-suffixes/629274/62 "2012-08-05T20:20:41Z")

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> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> A clipping or splinter needs to be distinguished from a compounding (borrowed) word. _-phobia_ is an English suffix becaus it was borrowed from the Greco-Roman word _phobia_ mneanminmg fear or revilion. Coinages with it follow traditional English rules for borrowing Latin and/or Greekl nouns and c comppounmdinmg them to form appelationms for new concepts.  
> A true swplinter detaches sylklables which previously hd no indpendent existence to create a termn for a new concept in somne way related conceptually to the source word, such as anceathonm from Marathon, where \*_athon_, which had no previous indepenmdent edxistence, takles on the3 mneanminmg of, mnore or les, feat of enmdurance.

😃  
I don’t really get the grammatical histories you’ve placed here, but I think I can sense them. Can you tell me about the “mn?” I see it constantly in the _Wake._

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