In reading an article concerning the authorship of De Doctrina Christiana -- some people think that someone other than John Milton wrote it -- I came across the following, in a list of people who were researching this issue: "David Holmes (West of England, Bristol), a stylometrician whose reputation has been built on authorship attribution studies ..."

Stylometrician? One presumes that this is a person who compares the style of the questioned work with the style of known works of the author to reach a conclusion. New one on me!

One presumes that this is a person who compares the style of the questioned work with the style of known works of the author to reach a conclusion.

Your analysis is convincing, Father Steve.

I assume "metrician" derives from "metric" which is defined thus [Dictionary.com]:

met·ric
1. A standard of measurement.
2. Mathematics. A geometric function that describes the
distances between pairs of points in a space.

Cross-pollinating from your "humour" thread ["Blood, phlegm, choler or bile?"], I wonder if we could describe George Santayana as a humourmetrician?

Father Steve:

I am posting this separate thought as a separate post as I know some old-timers are impatient with "long" posts. Some are also impatient with "multiple posts", so it seems I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.

However, there is not much activity today so I am hoping I can be forgiven for attempting to generate some discussion on the excellent topic you have introduced to us.

"Styleometrician" is a "blendword" within the meaning of William Safire's "On Language" column in today's New York Times Magazine.

On Language
Blendwords
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: May 29, 2005

"Now, armed with a couple of simple techniques, anybody can get into the act of coining neologisms.

The easiest trick is the blendword. That snips off the first syllables of two words in a familiar phrase. It achieved a major breakthrough back before World War II with comsymp, blending ''Communist sympathizer.'' In the early 70's, Vice President Spiro Agnew, who delighted in driving his ideological opponents up the wall, took the phrase ''radical liberal,'' shortened it to radic-lib, which evoked memories of comsymp and achieved his oratorical purpose."

----------

The experienced neologist also blends the front end of one word and the back end of another: ''fan magazine'' is compressed into fanzine. In 1968, Gov. Claude Kirk of Florida snipped the ''edu-'' from the front of ''education'' and married it to the last syllable of ''bureaucrat'' to form educrat, which still annoys school administrators.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/magazine/29ONLANGUAGE.html?

Most old-timers don't object to "long" posts when they are posted by fellow old-timers, or multiple posts produced by fellow old-timers. [At least, if they do object to them, they never say so lest their impieties invite reciprocal scrutiny.]

Also, many old-timers are unabashed admirers of William Safire, as I am myself. So I am taking a calculated risk, Father Steve, that, on this occasion, at least, I will escape the worst vituperations of the old-timers because it would be somewhat awkward for them to chastise me for quoting their beloved Safire.

Is a "blendword" the same thing as a portmanteau?

Is a portmanteau the same thing as a frankenword?

Are all three examples of all three?

Here you go, F. Steve:
stylometrician (STY.loh.muh.trish.un) n. A person who uses statistical analysis to study the style and content of text or speech.
Much more at:
http://www.wordspy.com/words/stylometrician.asp

Biblical scholars have been using stylometric methods for nearly a century but without describing them in that term. How about that?

Is a "blendword" the same thing as a portmanteau?
Is a portmanteau the same thing as a frankenword?

as you'll see, wikipedia redirects frankenword to portmanteau, and goes on to say that linguists call them blends. Lewis Carroll is given credit for coining portmanteau.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenword

My copy of the 1987 edition of the Cambridge Encylopedia of Language mentions stylometrics (page 67), though David Crystal himself seems to prefer the term stylostatistics. He does have the adjectival form stylostatistical, but not, alas, any noun-form for the practitioner.

Bingley

FWIW, -crat is a lexeme unto itself, but I think that in educrat the connotation of bureaucrat is meant to seep in. That might be why some object to the word. I would like to distinguish between portmanteau words, in which non-leximic elements are smooshed up into each other (e.g., smog, from smoke and fog) and words built up from legitimate lexemes (e.g., educrat).

to distinguish between portmanteau words, in which non-leximic elements are smooshed up into each other (e.g., smog, from smoke and fog) and words built up from legitimate lexemes (e.g., educrat).
Cool, Faldage! I hadn't really thought/known about this, but yep, if one is one thing it ought not be called the other.
So--if -crat is a lexeme, is -cracy also? What about demo-?

Yup, -crat and -cracy are from the Greek kratos, strength, power. Demo is also from the Greek, in this case demos, people. That's why I like the solecism hypocracy for hypocrisy. Turns it into power of the underdog.

Thanks!
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8850/udog.htm

"There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!"