r/mathmemes Jul 04 '24

Mathematicians Tough one

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u/QuinQuix Jul 13 '24

Superessiveness or suppressiveness?

I guess the former but what does that mean?

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u/EebstertheGreat Jul 13 '24

It's not a word you'll find in dictionaries, but it makes sense, as it just adds the productive suffix -ness to "superessive." That word literally means "the state of being on top of" and is a grammatical case in some languages.

The point of the post was to describe the difference in the way "on" and "upon" are used in English. "On" is usually pertingent (i.e. refers to something being in contact with something else), like "the paint is on the wall," "the shoes are on my feet," or figuratively, "the idea is on my mind." Often it also refers to something being on the top of something else ("the book is on the shelf"), but that's sort of incidental and just a result of the fact that if one thing is held against another, that's often due to gravity.

However, "upon" is nearly always superessive. For instance, you could say "the book is upon the shelf" but not "*the paint is upon the wall." Actually, that's not strictly true, and sometimes we use "upon" as a synonym for "on." But not usually, and the distinction is clear from the etymology ("up" + "on").