I was, of course, being dense.
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Not necessarily. Sardonic might not be an exact match. I’ll be interested to hear what others suggest. I think it’s a cool question. Words are awesome.
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Yeah, accidentally becoming a linguist turns out to have been one of my better non-decisions in life. Really enjoying the territory.
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Interestingly, although sardonic is not a common word, it does pop up from time to time. But sardonicism, athough it is indeed a legitimate word, is so rare that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard or read it anywhere. Weird.
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Indeed. In English, you don't seem to prefer the noun forms of adjectives very much - you'd rather just attach them to some noun.
Whereas in Norwegian it's so ubiquitous, I've spent months struggling to find a way to categorize them accurately for my employer...
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Yes, English has some adjectives that don't get nounified much, and sardonic is one. Here's some arcane info I just dug up: "The term «sardonicism» is used very little and occupies the 189,114 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary. "
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Sometimes we tack on "ness," "tude," or "ism" almost randomly, often with some kind of apology for the awkwardness. And you're right that we often just use two words. Your original "amused disdain" is, I'd say, the cleanest way to say it.
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@Failed_Buddhist's Yiddish term is so on the mark for what I was thinking of, it's almost funny.
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