neologism watch

[fox]

You guys. Today in the car on the way to PT I heard the radio weatherman invent a new word. I think. He was talking about how we'll be seeing a few showers tonight, albethem not as severe as the rain we had over the weekend.

Obviously I understand his use of 'albethem' in context, but quite seriously, is this a word now? It seems to analyze albeit right down to 'although it is/was/will be', which I'm pretty sure isn't how it got that way. Can he do that?

I don't have the OED until I'm back at my desk, so I can't look up The Experts until tomorrow.

Comments

[florahart]

The google machine comes up with a bunch of instances of this usage, but that doesn't prove it's been, like recognized.

However, now I am puzzled because I think the it in albeit is a subject, innit? As you said, although it be. "It" doesn't change when it's an object, but them is the object form of they. So shouldn't it be albethey? Hm.

[fox]

That's so far down the list of what puzzles me about this thing that I didn't even think of it until after I'd hit "post". :-)

Also: 1250 hits for albethem; 5200 or so for albethey. 51,500,000 for albeit. I hesitate to count either of these earlier numbers as a "bunch". :-)

[jae]

Huh! That's really cool!

-J

[kcobweb]

This just *boggles* my mind, every time I read it.