Questions tagged [compounds]
Questions about words that are created by combining two or more other words together.
311
questions
0
votes
0answers
20 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
36 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
votes
0answers
63 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
78 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
69 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
49 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
31 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
45 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
29 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
79 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
985 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
58 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
29 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 ...
2
votes
2answers
83 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
63 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
38 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
421 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
142 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
128 views
So there is no solid rule to form PLURAL COMPOUND NOUNS right? Why say “gumball machine” but “securities dealer”?
In the dictionary,
a security (FINANCE, STOCK MARKET): a financial investment such as a
bond or share that is traded on a financial market
a securities agreement/audit/dealer
a ...
0
votes
1answer
39 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
67 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
70 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
23 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
184 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 ...
-1
votes
3answers
32 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
50 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
74 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
159 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.
...
7
votes
7answers
2k 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
0answers
38 views
sentence identification
What are these sentences ?
The moors, which were covered in heather, appeared mystical under the gray mist.
My favorite type of food is Japanese, especially sushi, I wish I knew how to make it myself
...
0
votes
1answer
35 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
102 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
196 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-...
0
votes
1answer
81 views
Hyphen in compound word?
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
52 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
114 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
73 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
50 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
votes
0answers
64 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
79 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 ...
7
votes
2answers
6k views
“Filepath” or “file path”? [closed]
A path, the general form of the name of a file or directory, specifies
a unique location in a file system.
"Filename" is a compound, but how about "filepath"/"file path"? "Filepath" seems incorrect ...
0
votes
1answer
5k views
“Try and get some rest” OR “Try to get some rest”? [duplicate]
Which sentence is grammatically correct?
Try and get some rest
(or)
Try to get some rest
1
vote
3answers
334 views
How to correctly hyphenate a phrase with clarifying word in parenthesis
How do I correctly hyphenate this phrase:
using a client (browser) initiated session
using a client- (browser-) initiated session
using a client (browser)-initiated session
The session ...
-3
votes
1answer
66 views
preposition modifying compound object
"The ethical standard is to abstain from sexual intimacies with colleagues or with staff for whom you have supervisory, evaluative, or instructional responsibility."
Does the above sentence mean ...
7
votes
4answers
2k views
What's the plural of “Confirmation of Entry”?
I've recently wondered about the plural of the expression "Confirmation of Entry". A "Confirmation of Entry" is a piece of paper that Cambridge Assessment English gives candidates who are going to ...
0
votes
1answer
2k views
Feminine form of “god king/emperor”
I'm trying to figure out what the correct feminine forms of "god king" and "god emperor" are. Do I just replace "king" and "emperor" with their feminine equivalents (i.e. "god queen" and "god empress")...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
What are the two parts to a compound word?
I'm wondering what each word that compromise a compound word is called. For example, You would say:
"Life" is the first ____ in "lifetime". There are two ____s in "lifetime".
Is the answer I am ...
1
vote
1answer
246 views
Why is the noun “blacklist” (written without a space) in the dictionary, but not “whitelist”? [closed]
Checking Oxford Dictionaries Online, I find the noun blacklist, written as one word, and the noun white list, written as two. There is no black list defined as a compound written open, and there is no ...
1
vote
0answers
98 views
How to avoid ambiguity and convey specific meaning in compound names ? (name + name)
There are already other questions regarding compound names (noun + noun) and now I better understand the general rule, which seems to be, unless dealing with an exception, to only make plural one of ...
