Can さ be added to nouns?


I want to equate the quality of something to an apple. (Bare with me, just
using a random noun to make the desired construct clearer.) But instead of
going around it and saying something like "it looks like an apple" or "has
apple-like qualities", I want to just go ahead and say "appleness", like "Your
appleness is amazing". Evidently this can't be done in valid English, but is
there a way to do this in valid Japanese?

Slightly better example: "Your childishness is annoying." If don't want to say
'childishness' and instead want to specify the exact level of referenced age,
say grade-schooler: "Your grade-schooler-ness is annoying." Is this doable?




To add to macraf's answer, らしさ and っぽさ are slightly different, and not always
interchangeable.

**らしさ** suggests an integral set of qualities or appearance, and is generally
approving of those qualities.

**っぽさ** is much more vague, and can be used in a dismissive way.

Although you can say either りんごらしさのある味 or りんごっぽさのある味 to praise a flavor, only
〜っぽさ can be used to criticize a flavor. So if you're calling out someone's
annoying grade-schooler-like behavior, that would be 小学生っぽさ and not 小学生らしさ.

The two need to be distinguished carefully with some nouns like 子供, because
子供らしさ is a good thing and 子供っぽさ is a usually a bad thing.




Not directly as 〜さ makes a noun out of an adjective.

You can first make an adjective out of a noun by adding 〜らしい and then make it
a noun again by changing to 〜らしさ.

In fact you can even find the word "appleness" アップルらしさ used/defined in 日経新聞
[article](http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZZO76838990Z00C14A9000000/), so not
a bad example at all.

