Bewitched by Fish

Hello, have you wondered about -monger as a suffix?

The words “scaremongering” and”fearmongering” have popped up in my world as a parent lately–from other parents describing the landscape of available advice for teaching a child about using the toilet. I realized I think of “-mongering” in these instances as like “generating, amassing, and stuffing the reader full of,” but that I don’t quite see fishmongering that way! So let’s see:

“Traffic” seems so right, because it’s not necessarily directly selling to a consumer, but sometimes serving as an ostensibly guileless purveyor of whatever. But I for one find that furthest-back Greek basis to be what best connects all the mongering…and artfully arranged fish seems a finer thing by which to be bewitched than visions of your child either still in diapers at age 6 or constipated in perpetuity.

Also I feel the need to add a certain clarification:

Also, no relation to “mongrel.”

♥️

Sarah


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