Questions tagged [compounds]
Questions about words that are created by combining two or more other words together.
319
questions
0
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37 views
word, noun, and compound noun
A noun is defined in Oxford as:
A word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things (common noun), or to name a particular one of these (proper noun).
A ...
2
votes
2answers
104 views
How is 'compound noun' defined in CGEL?
This question is specifically about The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum.
Here's CGEL's definition of word:
In order to avoid possible misunderstanding we will ...
0
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2answers
65 views
How do we write the names of the cities? [duplicate]
We write New York as separate, not Newyork. But we write Newtown as compound noun and not separate. This is a problem in tests like IELTS. How do we know when to write the names separately?
-1
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0answers
30 views
“After” clause in Second Conditional
In this sentence:
If, in theory, they dedicated more time to working for the good of the
country (and themselves), it would be considerably easier to handle
the pressure of money debt and be ...
4
votes
1answer
151 views
Of sweet tooths and black sheep: when does the plural of a compound turn regular?
According to many dictionaries, the plural of sweet tooth is sweet tooths, and not *sweet teeth (see e.g. here and here; the OED doesn't address the issue explicitly, but one of the examples it ...
1
vote
1answer
61 views
Use of the prefix “non-” on compound words [duplicate]
What is the correct way to apply the prefix "non-" to negate a (maybe dashed) compound adjective?
Suppose that we want to negate a generic compound adjective "adjective1 adjective2".
In this case:
"...
1
vote
1answer
77 views
Is 'a 210-million-people market' correctly written? [duplicate]
Usually I find compound adjectives quite straightforward, but I'm not so sure when it comes to the following:
A 210-million-people market
So how should I refer to a market 210 million people large ...
0
votes
2answers
75 views
Isn’t “higher-priced products” with an adjective ungrammatical for the correct “more highly priced products” with an adverb?
The phrase higher-priced products is very common, but isn’t it grammatically incorrect?
The adjective higher is being forced to servce as an adverb here, so the phrase should instead be more highly ...
1
vote
2answers
243 views
Is the “The Pirate King” another structure of “The King of Pirates”, interchangeably or “Pirate” is like an adj., meaning “The King that is a pirate”?
I have ambiguity with the meaning of some compound nouns, especially in the form noun+noun like: "The Pirate King", "The Lion King", "The Pirate Bay" and so on.
EDITED:
to put it in context:
...
1
vote
1answer
47 views
Do the words “en dash” and “em dash” require a hyphen? [duplicate]
I have seen the compound words "en dash" and "em dash" sometimes appear with a hyphen ("en-dash") and sometimes without. Are both the hyphenated and the unhyphenated forms correct?
0
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0answers
21 views
Compound nouns vs possessive (of) [duplicate]
Which should I choose: The factory roof or the roof of the factory?
Are there some grammar/rules about the difference? What case should I use the first sentence in? What case should I use the second ...
0
votes
1answer
47 views
Various mails in chain [closed]
Which is more correct to say
See mail trail
See trail mail
I want to know the right sentence to use when writing mail. Some people use mail trail while some use trail mail. It puts me ...
0
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0answers
69 views
“drinks cans” compound noun [duplicate]
I've met a "drinks cans" compound noun on this webpage.
See how food and drinks cans get recycled
As I know, there is a specific rule for the plural compound nouns that are made of two nouns. In ...
2
votes
2answers
91 views
Term for creating a fantasy word from all letters of two existing words?
If I have two words - let's say "lamp" and "vampire" and I put all of their letters together to form a new fantasy word. e.g. "vapamlimper" does this process have a name?
I already considered terms ...
2
votes
2answers
125 views
‘Dog issue’: a compound or a noun phrase?
I’m so confused of the following expression:
‘the hot dog issue’.
The dialogue is following:
A: Have you heard of the hot dog issue?
B: Yes, I have. These days, the dog’s euthanasia problem is very ...
-1
votes
1answer
54 views
Why is it incorrect to say/write “I want to know today weather” instead of “I want to know today's weather”? [closed]
"'s" indicates possesive case. Although it's absurd to say that "today" owns "weather", possesive case can indicate other relationships too. For example, in "Picasso's paintings" it means "by Picasso" ...
2
votes
1answer
33 views
“Uploaduser” or “upload user”
I'm working on a product where you can enable an upload user (or uploaduser?) which is a special user that has upload privileges.
I'm not a native english speaker and I cannot figure out whether it ...
-1
votes
1answer
47 views
“A servile propaganda operation”: is the “propaganda operation” collocation leveraged proper in this context?
[...] has ever had at his disposal—a servile propaganda operation.1
I was looking at some ngram for collocations with propaganda and there are many more results with campaign and machine for instance ...
1
vote
1answer
30 views
Hyphenated abbreviation of component-sharing compound
In German it is unconspicuous to write 'An- oder Abwesenheit', but
writing 'pre- or absence' in English would be conspicuous and perhaps
either jocular or affectatious. I cannot think of an example ...
2
votes
2answers
126 views
Beesting or bee sting
A friend made a typo when writing "bee sting" and wrote "beesting" but apparently this is also a word according to Merriam-Webster.
Does anyone actually use "beesting" if so, is it a result of some ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
“Fish and chips shop” or “fish and chip shop”?
When referring to a restaurant specializing in fish and chips would you call it a fish and chip shop or a fish and chips shop?
0
votes
1answer
67 views
What part of speech is the word hair in 'hair spray'? [duplicate]
Consider the following sentence as an example. I used some hair spray. What part of speech is hair? Intuitively, I want to say it's an adjective modifying spray since hair spray is two separate words ...
1
vote
1answer
35 views
“Personal Use Program” or “Personal-Use Program”?
Help me settle a discussion on this topic. Everywhere I look, within my company's internal documents as well as documents from other companies, a "personal use" program is not hyphenated. A colleague ...
3
votes
2answers
141 views
Plural or single with compound objects
Suppose you want to say something like
There are two crates, having three and one balls respectively.
How to say this correctly?
Is it ‘…one balls’ or ‘three balls and one ball’, or something ...
1
vote
1answer
90 views
Mishearing something overheard
Consider the following situation:
A & B are having a conversation. C overhears it.
Either A or B says something C considers controversial.
C later speaks about this in private, but has misheard.
...
16
votes
2answers
1k views
Why is it gerontology and not geronology?
I hope this is the right place to ask this, if not please give a feedback.
According to the Wikipedia, the term gerontology is made up from two parts, geron and -logia, which mean respectively "old ...
2
votes
0answers
172 views
“Testbed” or “test bed”? [duplicate]
"A testbed is a platform for conducting rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of scientific theories, computational tools, and new technologies" (Wikipedia).
While Wikipedia seems to prefer "...
0
votes
1answer
958 views
“everywhere” vs. “anywhere” vs. “somewhere”
Which one is correct to use?
We usually stay home because it's more comfortable than go
everywhere/anywhere/somewhere
1
vote
2answers
340 views
Proper use of “forward out”
I want to use "Forward out" to indicate that no matter which port messages are sent out they always arrive at the same destination. Are the following sentences grammatically correct and serve the ...
2
votes
1answer
223 views
Is there a rule for forming plural compound nouns?
The the Cambridge dictionary demonstrates that compound nouns can be pluralized by adding an s to the first word.
a security (FINANCE, STOCK MARKET): a financial investment such as a
bond or ...
0
votes
1answer
47 views
In which grammatical number should the first word in a compound be? [duplicate]
I've recently caught myself spending too much time wondering about several off-sounding compounds I've come across, e.g. browsers list (as in, a list of browsers) and tasks queue (as in, a queue of ...
1
vote
1answer
102 views
“-field” joining rule for compound words?
Is there a rule when to join a word with field and when to leave them as two separate words?
Examples:
I walked through a cornfield.
I walked through a maize field.
I walked through a ...
0
votes
1answer
104 views
Dash after the prefix “non”
Is the hyphen that we often see in words such as "non-zero", "non-trivial", etc. optional?
In case the answer is negative, is there any rule of thumb on which one may rely in order to recall when ...
0
votes
1answer
27 views
Client and server side componets
I'm having a problem to refer to the components that are in both, the client-side and the server-side.
I started writing: "client and server-side components" (1)
I did that in order to avoid ...
1
vote
1answer
204 views
Is there a term for an equivocal compound e.g. “guinea pig”
"Sweetbread," "guinea pig," "shortbread" (a typical Scottish biscuit), "egg cream" (a carbonated drink), and "firefly" are all not what their two nouns claim.
A sweetbread is neither sweet nor ...
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votes
3answers
58 views
Term for entering a market with a lower pricing and simpler offer [business] [closed]
There is a term meant to describe the following situation, in business strategy:
Suppose there is a market with a few companies acting as a closed oligopoly, with only full-featured and very pricey ...
1
vote
0answers
75 views
What is the verb portion of a hyphenated/compound/multiword adjective or noun called?
For example, in the noun "victim-blaming", what is the "blaming" part called? Is it some special type of verb, or perhaps something else?
Words of this form can generally be made up and can still be ...
0
votes
1answer
81 views
Compound Adjectives: Usage after “is” / Usage with noun
I'm currently writing a text in which I have some object called a graph, which has the attribute of being planar in a special way, namely in the multi-level way. I'm pretty certain that I should call ...
2
votes
1answer
188 views
The use of “vicinity”
The noun "vicinity" is used with the preposition "in" before it and sometimes with "of" after it:
There are a few hotels in the vicinity.
There is a good shop in the vicinity of the station.
...
8
votes
7answers
3k views
I am a pansexual trans/gender-fluid person
There's a risk of me potentially offending someone but I am an outsider trying to get to grips with this terminology. Online, I read someone who identified themself as a
pansexual trans/gender-...
0
votes
1answer
40 views
Which is more correct: “two- or three-note riff” or “two-or-three-note riff”?
When I read "two- or three-note riff," I sense an emphasis on the riff containing two notes with an occasional third note; whereas, a two-or-three-note riff seems to mean either or.
Am I reading too ...
0
votes
3answers
118 views
Trade marks or trademarks?
What is the correct format to use when referring to trademarks in British English? Is "trademarks" generally preferable?
I've seen both used in different contexts, the UK GOV page uses "trade marks", ...
1
vote
2answers
244 views
Intelligent-intensive or Intelligence-intensive?
Which of the titular phrases is the most appropriate and correct to express a work or task that mainly relies on the intelligence of an entity?
Stats of matches from Google Books:
Intelligent-...
-1
votes
1answer
102 views
Hyphen in compound word? [closed]
Better with or without hyphen?
Dollar-quotes
Use dollar-quoted strings to simplify!
Use dollar-quoting to simplify!
Does it matter whether the second part is another noun?
And does it make a ...
1
vote
1answer
55 views
Why it is “Okun's Law” and “Philips Curve” rather than “Okun Law” and “Philips' Curve”? [duplicate]
How exactly do these kinds of compound words work?
"Okun's Law" and "Philips Curve" rather than "Okun Law" and "Philips' Curve"?
Is there any grammar book I can look for?
5
votes
3answers
126 views
Is there a word for confusing words like 'everyday' with phrases like 'every day'?
I see people confusing words that are compounded from two words with a phrase made from those words. This is easy to do, as they look and sound very similar:
For example:
"everyday", an adjective, ...
2
votes
1answer
123 views
Two-word verbs described with One-word nouns
I've noticed that certain (compound?) verbs are combined into one word when the process is used as a noun. It seems to generally be processes with a preposition in them. If the noun isn't combined ...
0
votes
1answer
55 views
Why is the sentence “millennial-tinged”?
I recently came upon with a sentence:
In her office at Oxford University Press, Paton was drafting a brand new entry for the Oxford English Dictionary. Also in her in-tray when I visited were the ...
0
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0answers
85 views
Is “a-okay” acceptable in lowercase?
Interestingly, Merriam-Webster has an entry for "A-OK" but not for "A-okay."
Most other dictionaries I have referenced have an entry for "A-okay" including Oxford Living Dictionaries, dictionary.com,...
1
vote
1answer
99 views
Hyphenation in compounds with abbreviation remarks
So far I understood, that hyphenation should aid readability.
Examples [1, 2]:
North America-based company
A Gaussian mixture model-based approach
We propose spherical Gaussian-based ...
