warmthiness (n.): the characteristic expressed or emotion projected to imitate warmth for outside observers. Compare WARMTH, TRUTH, TRUTHINESS.

Just a quick note to point out that Language Log today identified the use of “warmthiness” in James Wolcott’s Vanity Fair article “The Simple Life: White House Edition.” Wolcott observes that Laura Bush manages never to make her presence felt to the television viewer watching the First Couple, that “she hasn’t been supplying the warmthiness that every presidency and reality-TV series requires and desires as a sweetener.”

Language Logger Eric Bakovic points out the handful of other uses that predate it on the web, but neglects to mention that those earlier coinages merely imitate the ending phoneme of truthiness without seizing on the semantic nuance, while Wolcott has with a masterful stroke transposed the -iness suffix and brought into stark relief its meaning: that one can take an attributive noun and, with the addition of “-iness,” render it invented, artificial, and disingenuous. The question remains open whether this only holds true for nouns ending in “-th.” I have no doubt that “mirthiness” is a legitimate coinage (and, by the way, dibs), but could one comment on Garrison Keillor’s “wistiness?” Please feel free to answer below.