The Cambridge Guide to English Usage by PAM PETERS

Author:PAM PETERS [PETERS, PAM]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-01-07T04:35:27.068000+00:00

bookish boyish

childish churlish feverish

fiendish foolish

freakish girlish

owlish

irrelevance or irrelevancy

popish

priggish prudish selfish

sheepish

Irrelevancy had a 40 years headstart on irrelevance stylish

waspish

in C19, but the latter has more than made up the The examples show that these words are usually built ground in the following century. Dictionaries

on stems of one-syllable – though standoffish proves everywhere give it priority, and irrelevance otherwise. Many such words have negative

outnumbers irrelevancy by more than 10:1 in BNC

implications, and writers who are concerned about data, though in CCAE it’s more like 2:1. Neither them in, say, childish will resort to the neutral database suggests any division of labor that would childlike instead (see further under -like).

make irrelevance the more abstract of the two (see In informal language -ish is highly productive, further under -nce/-ncy). Only irrelevancy can be adding a tentative quality to the words formed with it.

made plural (irrelevancies), yet both words can be Adjectives like greenish, whitish, brownish are not made countable in the singular ( an irrelevancy, an quite the color named in them; and lowish, tallish, irrelevance). British writers rarely seem to qualify thickish hint at a particular quality without asserting irrelevancy, whereas they give pen to various kinds it. In indicating age or time, we may use -ish words to of irrelevance including (an) expensive /

avoid sounding too strict about the matter:

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