Wow! I hadn’t dreamed that this discussion would be so lively. Thank you all for responding.

Iolanthe, Julie S actually included a nice description of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism in her post. (Thanks, Julie!) Linguists, when acting in their professional capacities, attempt to describe the language as it is actually used, without imposing any value judgments. For example, a linguist, functioning as such, might note the usage of “between you and I” vs. “between you and me” and might try to determine who would say which and under what circumstances. If they are sociolinguists, they might go on to record what other people’s reactions to the two phrases are. If, however, they state that “between you and I” is not good English, they have stepped outside their rôle as linguists. They are certainly entitled to make such statements as speakers of English; but when they do so, they should make it clear that they are not acting in the capacity of a linguist, but as a speaker of the language. This is something that is drilled into students as early as linguistics 101. I guess it’s kind of like the credo that journalists should report the news and not BE the news.

I imagine it is the same way in the hard sciences…When scientists set up experiments, they surely have a preference as to the outcome, but they are not supposed to let their preferences get in the way of their objectivity. They have to describe the actual outcome, whether it meets with their preferences or not.

Ann, you make some good points. I guess “Resplendent Woman” is a no-go? ;-) Your photograph makes me appreciate Dean Cain…

Julie, Thank you for posting! By all means, keep me on the straight and narrow. The situation with “ultra” is indeed complex. I’ll cede the point that “ultra” can be used with some nouns, but it is far more productive in combination with adjectives. And many of the nouns that I have seen cited were either borrowed whole from other languages (such as ultra-royalist) or actually built up from adjectives first.

Let me digress with another word: unknowledgeable. This word could, hypothetically, be built up in different ways:

1. know; knowledge; knowledgeable; unknowledgeable

2. know; knowledge; unknowledge; unknowledgeable

3. know; unknow; unknowledge; unknowledgable

Only the first way results in real words in all the intermediate steps. More importantly, the first one follows the rules that speakers of English know about the prefix “un-“. “Un-“ readily combines with verbs (“unzip”), but almost never with nouns. (The advertisement proclaiming a particular brand to be the “Un cola” is so memorable precisely because it violates listener expectations.) The third method of building up the word would be possible, but far less likely, since “unknow” is not a common verb. (The two morphemes in it are both common enough that speakers of English would be able to deduce a meaning for “unknow,” and could readily imagine circumstances where it might be used as a synonym for “forget”; but it is by no means a common word.)

It is my hypothesis that “ultra-cleanliness” in your usage would actually be built up as:

Clean, ultra-clean, ultra-cleanly, ultra-cleanliness.

If this is correct, then “ultra” is modifying the adjective “clean,” and not the noun “cleanliness”.

Of course, if I were to conduct such an analysis for a scholarly paper, I would also check the OED and other sources to see what historical evidence there may be in favour of any of the hypotheses regarding the construction of a polymorphemic word.

Marcus, point taken about ultra-violence in particular. However, Burgess was known for pushing the limits of the English language. In order to have evidence of “ultra+noun” being a productive combination, one must be able to produce a number of such ultra+noun constructions that could not be explained in other fashions, such as I have done for “ultracleanliness” and “ultraroyalist” above.

Incidentally, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ultra- shows ultra combining with quite a number of words. There are not many ultra+noun combinations, but there are a few that would counter my arguments; such as ultra-heat and ultra-vacuum. These are words that I had not been familiar with, and words that I find awkward. (Yes, “awkward” is a prescriptivist term. I’m speaking with my “speaker of English” hat on when I use it. Linguists actually have a tendency to doff and don both hats fairly frequently. More on that, as well as what linguistics is, in future installments of this series. DW, Stephnachia, et al., thanks for your interest!)

Terry, your point about “Ultra Woman” vs. “Ultrawoman” is another example of the fact that determining what precisely a word is is much trickier than it seems at first blush. I think you may be right about familiarity helping us to accept “Superman”. OTOH, Super- does seem to combine with nouns much more readily than does Ultra-. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/super shows a number of super+noun combinations, such as superhuman, super-achiever, and super-church.

Sue, no comment; but now that you mention it…. ;-)

Edit: I have written my next topic post ("What is linguistics?") and plan to post it over the weekend.

Joy,
Lynn