I think I see what the advertising agency was aiming for by centering this advertising campaign around the "-ility" suffix, based on the positive aspects of the definitions for the suffix listed below.
-ility
(Latin: a suffix; meaning, ability, ability to) wordinfo.info
(Latin: a suffix; meaning, ability, ability to) wordinfo.info
-ility
a combination of -ile and -ity, used to form abstract nouns from adjectives with stems in -ile: agility; civility; ability. dictionary.com
a combination of -ile and -ity, used to form abstract nouns from adjectives with stems in -ile: agility; civility; ability. dictionary.com
However, what immediately popped into my mind were the following words:
debility
fragility
futility
hostility
senility
volatility
invisibility
irritability
inaccessibility
irresponsibility
susceptibility
Sometimes I think the ad campaign people were on holiday and they let the floor cleaners make the posters!
ReplyDeleteI can see why they tried this trick. It might have worked better if they had gone with -able or -ability, rather than ility, but even so...
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason suffixes are last in position. The root or base tends to hold more semantic info.