Mary Poppinsy
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more Mary Poppinsy
form: most Mary Poppinsy
form: Mary Poppins-y
Etymology: From Mary Poppins + -y.
Senses: examples: text: “Look, it’s really very simple. What I want, what the team wants, is the moral and financial support of the public. If we want that support, then we have to act like the public wants us to act. And what the public wants is something to point to, so that parents can tell their kids, ‘Why don’t you act like that.’” Maybe that is Mary Poppinsy, but Nancy Greene has not forgotten that in the first five out of her eight seasons in international racing, the team had virtually no support at all.
ref: 1967 November, John Henry Auran, “Canada Loves Nancy Greene”, in Skiing, volume 20, number 2, page 96:
text: Robert Stigwood’s “Times Square” was, hands down, the pits, not only tasteless but loathsome for it’s^([sic]) Mary Poppinsy misrepresentation of the sleazy 42nd Street strip.
ref: 1980 December 28, Alex Keneas, “In film, the best and the brightest”, in Newsday, part II, page 5:
text: Angels are exciting and more accessible than God, but some pop culture accounts have them bustling around to restart dead alternators and return overdue library books and Mary Poppinsy stuff like that.
ref: 1995 April 28, Colin McEnroe, “And, lo, the land was smitten by a plague of angels”, in The Hartford Courant, volume CLVII, number 118, page E1:
text: There are also more structured bags like tweed that is a bit Mary Poppinsy.
ref: 1998 February 24, Belinda Gunn, “Handbags”, in The Sydney Morning Herald, number 50,071, section “Good Looks”, page 10:
text: This hymn to specifically female (and more universally human) self-assertion is cleverly punctuated by Maria stumbling and tripping under the weight of a rather Mary Poppinsy carpet bag and by coming to the song’s musical climax and letting forth a sheepishly intimidated ‘Oh, help!’.
ref: 2000, Peter Kemp, “How Do You Solve a ‘Problem’ Like Maria von Poppins?”, in Bill Marshall, Robynn Stilwell, editors, Musicals – Hollywood and Beyond, Exeter; Portland, Ore.: Intellect Books, →ISBN, section “Star Texts”, pages 57–58:
text: ‘Absolutely,’ I said as we strolled up the overtly wide, overtly leafy and generally a bit too Mary Poppinsy avenue.
ref: 2001, Richard Asplin, T-Shirt and Genes, Arrow Books, →ISBN, page 297:
text: > / Weepy sniff or Mary Poppinsy sniff?
ref: 2005 August 7, Ann Burlingham, “Question for y'all”, in alt.polyamory (Usenet):
text: If you take a closer look at the song, there's really nothing Mary Poppinsy about it at all.
ref: 2006 August 7, maxims, “AOQ Review 6-6: "Once More, With Feeling"”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):
text: Attendees at Friday’s Arts! Arcata enjoyed free carriage rides around the Plaza, courtesy Barney the gray Percheron horse and Brendan Fearon of Old Town Carriage Co. Arcata Main Street provided the service, which, acting as a force multiplier to the dazzling Season of Wonder and Light treatment of Arcata’s downtown, imparted a serious Mary Poppinsy effect to the Plaza experience.
ref: 2014 December 17, “Riding in style”, in Mad River Union, volume 2, number 12, page A3:
text: “You should sing,” she chose to say. “Something Mary Poppinsy?”
ref: 2017, Kiki Archer, A Fairytale of Possibilities, →ISBN:
glosses: Resembling or characteristic of the Mary Poppins book series and its adaptations or their eponymous protagonist, a magical English nanny.
Synonyms: Mary Poppins-esque