Talk:-lessness

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Latest comment: 13 years ago by Mglovesfun in topic -lessness
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Has this ever been added to a noun as a unit? Surely it's (deprecated template usage) -less first to form an adjective, then an additional (deprecated template usage) -ness. Equinox 21:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

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-lessness[edit]

From RFV:

Not a suffix AFAICT. Just a word ending in -less then suffixed with -ness. Why not -ingly for jokingly or mockingly? Anyway, are there any words ending in -lessness where the -less form does not exist? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Weak keep (unless there are such words, of course, in which case regular keep). IMHO this is not as clear a case as -ality or -osity (where the form is not obviously predictable from the parts), but still, the lack of *-lessity or *-lesshood suggests to me that this might be worth including. Or at least, I think we need something. With words that collocate this way — for example, verbs that use specific prepositions to construe their objects — we indicate that on the definition line or in example sentences (or both); but neither approach seems to work for suffixes. Maybe a usage note at [[-less]]? Or maybe [[-less#Derived terms]] should also include words where -less isn't the last suffix (e.g. by listing "reckless, -ness, -ly" rather than just "reckless")?—RuakhTALK 17:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I think a usage note at (deprecated template usage) -less would cover it. Equinox 18:01, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Move to RFD. After more than three months, no one has presented any examples of -lessless -lessness words, so I don't think we're going to resolve this here. —RuakhTALK 23:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Weak keep, as I said above.

RuakhTALK 22:20, 9 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hard-redirect to [[-less]] and cover at the latter.​—msh210 (talk) 05:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
Delete or I suppose a redirect is ok if we explain in [[-less]]. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:33, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
Redirect + usage note sounds fine to me as well. —RuakhTALK 22:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Note: There's a usage note at [[-less]] now (thanks mainly to DCDuring).​—msh210 (talk) 17:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Redirected. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:38, 1 January 2011 (UTC)Reply