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
2 comments:
Sometimes I think the ad campaign people were on holiday and they let the floor cleaners make the posters!
I 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...
There's a reason suffixes are last in position. The root or base tends to hold more semantic info.
Post a Comment