“Substantialiscious”

This word is used in Snic­kers’ new ad cam­paign, whe­rein they plas­ter these long, awk­ward neo­lo­gisms (e.g., “Pea­nu­to­po­lis,” “Hun­ge­rec­tomy,” etc.) on buses and bill­boards and on their candy bar wrap­pers themselves.

What struck me about this one is that any­body rea­ding it would promptly assume that it is a fusion of “subs­tan­tial” and “deli­cious”; but wouldn’t that pro­duce “subs­tan­tia­li­cious,” not “-scious”? In fact, the only words that end in “-scious” are “lus­cious” and the various forms of cons­cious­ness. I don’t think they meant to evoke lus­cious­ness, and even if they did, shouldn’t they have coi­ned “Subs­tan­tialuscious”?

Things got worse when I ope­ned the wrapper:

Subs­tan­tia­lis­cious \sub-‘stan(t)-shu-‘li-shus\
(noun). The weight of something when you weigh it with your tongue.

It is, of course, an adjec­tive, a fact that a con­tri­bu­tor to Urban Dic­tio­nary even tried to point out, albeit incorrectly.

It’s an easy tar­get, I know, but I’m just genui­nely sur­pri­sed that they let something like that get out the door; it’s a fairly cle­ver cam­paign, and “Hun­ge­rec­tomy” in par­ti­cu­lar pre­sup­po­ses that the ave­rage per­son is smart enough to know what the suf­fix “-ectomy” means. And wouldn’t some­body who knows that also know an adjec­tive from a noun? It’s just confusing.