I am trying to write a review of a text.
I am trying to understand the context of two phrases: "spider-man" and "human spider".
Do they mean different things?
Although these two words were used interchangeably in the movie "Spiderman" (2002), I have a feeling that, grammatically, "spider-man" means "a human with spider properties". On the other hand, "human spider" means "a spider with human properties".
Am I right or wrong?
‘Human anything’ tends to be human first (eg human dynamo, human torch).
Other combinations often go the other way (eg motor vehicle is a vehicle, tree kangaroo is a kangaroo, beach house is a house).
No.
The term human spider includes women. It is at least a tenable argument that the term spider-man does not.
Of course, traditionalists like myself would consider the word man can include women, e.g.
But the comic book character to which Spiderman refers, has a female counterpart, Spiderwoman. Admittedly this lacks the hyphenation of the question, but hyphenation seems to be a matter of style, so the average reader would infer a sexual difference.
"Spiderman" is, of course, a proper noun, the name of the character. "Spider-man" would (like "human spider") be merely a description of the hero. Presumably, in the movie, you cannot tell if any uses would contain a hyphen (unless the subtitles clarify things), so it should be assumed that any use of "Spiderman" is referring to the character's name.
