I love this post. Being a linguistics student myself, I'm definitely interested in hearing more! laugh (Incidentally, my major interests are also in sociolinguistics and pedagogy; right now, I'm planning to continue my studies in grad school and focus on sociolinguistics, but I'm also very interested in teaching ESL at some point.)

I've never thought of "ultra woman" that way; your post was very interesting to read. Just to be the devil's advocate, though, goofy since you just said linguists are descriptivists, I'd like to propose that this usage is not entirely ungrammatical.

First, to add to your awesome post: prescriptivism and descriptivism are two different ways of looking at language. Prescriptivists maintain that language must adhere to rigid rules of grammar and syntax, and prescribe what it should be. Descriptivists accept that language is alive, evolving and changing every day, and simply describe it as they study it.

I was a bit of a prescriptivist before I started studying linguistics... but fortunately I had a great professor who quickly convinced me that language is just about one of the most impossible things in existance to pin down. wink

Back to "ultra"... According to the Oxford English Dictionary online edition (I'm not sure if you have access to it, though - I logged in through my university), ultra originated as a prefix, which did precede nouns - however, it didn't have the same meaning as ultra in "ultra woman". I'm assuming it was meant to be a rough parallel of "super man".

From the OED:
Quote
1. Signifying ‘lying spatially beyond or on the other side of’: a. With ns., as ultraequinoctials (pl.), those who live beyond the equinox.
The OED had separate entries for "ultra-" as a prefix and "ultra" as a free morpheme. The etymology entry for the free morpheme says, "Independent use of ULTRA-, orig. as an abbreviation of F[rench] ultra-royaliste": also preceding a noun.

And this is part of the given definition:

Quote
A. adj.

1. Ultra-royalist.

2. Of persons or parties: Holding extreme views in politics or other matters of opinion.

3. Going beyond what is usual or ordinary; excessive, extreme, immoderate.

4. Expressive of extreme views.
Being classified as an adjective in itself implies that it modifies nouns, and the third entry fits "Ultra Woman" perfectly.

Forgetting the OED, though, (since citing it isn't very descriptivist of me goofy ) consider the following sentences:

(a) "My sweater is ultra-clean, thanks to Super Detergent."

(b) "I achieved ultra-cleanliness by washing my sweater with Super Detergent."

The second sentence looks and sounds grammatically correct to me. At least, nothing in it stands out as erroneous to me. (I should say that English is not my native language, though.)

I will concede, though, that "ultra professor" sounds wrong. goofy

Here's hoping I didn't forget everything I learned in the three months I've had off school, and just say something incredibly wrong. XD

Julie smile

Mulder: Imagine if you could come back and take out five people who had caused you to suffer. Who would they be?
Scully: I only get five?
Mulder: I remembered your birthday this year, didn't I, Scully?

(The X-Files)