New answers tagged suffixes
8
votes
Why do people say 'topless' but not 'topful'?
Such words are called "unpaired words" or "orphan words".
These are words which seem like they should have an obvious "opposite word" or "antonym", but when you ...
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34
votes
Why do people say 'topless' but not 'topful'?
Kenneth Holmqvist and Jarosław Płuciennik discuss this in Conceptualised Deviations from Expected Normalties: A Semantic Comparison Between Lexical Terms Ending in -ful and -less. This is more of a ...
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10
votes
Why do people say 'topless' but not 'topful'?
Adjectives formed on the pattern X-less when applied to a noun indicate that the noun lacks X.
Someone who is graceless lacks grace.
Adjectives formed on the pattern X-ful when applied to a noun ...
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20
votes
Why do people say 'topless' but not 'topful'?
Why, I'm not quite sure, but women can be topless but not men, unless it's said facetiously.
When a man doesn't wear a shirt, he's "bare chested" or "shirtless". Likewise when a ...
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7
votes
Why do people say 'topless' but not 'topful'?
Your last supposition is nearest, I think: "Maybe the suffix -less often isn't paired with a converse of -ful."
Where the -less or -ful means "without" or "having", it's ...
- 100k
6
votes
Why do people say 'topless' but not 'topful'?
Is the reason due to topless being more out of the norm, and thus requiring a term?
Yes. I suppose that, in linguistic terms, "topless" is culturally abnormal in the country of origin of ...
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