compund nouns 2
M.Jovanovic
Thanks everyone for your answers last week to my question concerning
compound nouns (task machine, toy producer). However, I'd like to clear one
more issue:
Is it legal to leave a noun in plural, if I put it under quotation marks -
tasks machine is incorrect, but what if I use it like this:
... "tasks" machine ...
with the intention of emphasizing something?
Best regards,
Miroslav
david56
It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any context.
Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.
By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English usage.
There is no "standard" English and there is no body to say what is
right and wrong.
--
David
=====
CyberCypher
> NOSPAMv...@poczta.onet.pl spake thus:
>
>> Hello.
>>
>> Thanks everyone for your answers last week to my question
>> concerning compound nouns (task machine, toy producer). However,
>> I'd like to clear one more issue:
>>
>> Is it legal to leave a noun in plural, if I put it under
>> quotation marks - tasks machine is incorrect, but what if I use
>> it like this:
>> ... "tasks" machine ...
I think this is a bit chickenshit, myself. Rather than using a
confusing adjective like tasks in scare quotes before the noun it
modifies, why not just stick it into a complement phrase that follows
"machine"? Then you could say cool things like "a machine that
does/performs tasks" or "a machine that tirelessly completes all
tasks" or "a machine to which tasks are a piece of motoroil-cake".
>> with the intention of emphasizing something?
You'd be emphasizing a linguistic weakness only [sic].
> It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any
> context. Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.
Yes, yes. A complete sentence, by all means. Like the previous two
and this one.
> By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English usage.
No. That applies only to the language police, the guys who arrest you
when you say illegal things like "I want to bleep the blarp" when
you're at the airport or in front of the White House or wherever.
> There is no "standard" English
Watch out, David. Such sentiments can get you into lots of trouble
with long-winded people. I merely suggested that earlier this week
and was duly taken to task for my heresy.
> and there is no body to say what is right and wrong.
There may be no body, but that doesn't mean murder has not been
committed over words. And there are plenty of us who'll be happy to
say what is right and wrong, even without being payed [sic] or
obeyed.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
M.Jovanovic
> > It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any
> > context. Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.
>
> Yes, yes. A complete sentence, by all means. Like the previous two
> and this one.
Huh-uh..... a complete sentence? That was a technical document I had to
correct some few weeks ago, and it had a chapter with a title: "Tasks
machine description" . I couldn't change it too much because it would be
incosistent with the heading style used in the rest of the document. I don't
remeber now how it was exactly further in the text, but that unfortunate
"tasks machine" concept was coming back every now and then. I was really
tempted to leave it as it was.
After that, I started wondering when it is possible to use plural in a
compound noun and when it is not.
It seems to me that in a such technical material, if a concept is defined
earlier and consistenly used throughout the document, it could be allowed
for a compound noun which describes the concept to have plural in it? And
definitely YES if it is used consistenly as "tasks machine" or "tasks"
machine. And that's what my question was about.
An interesting thing:
Google found 125 occurences of "weapon producer" and 366 for "weapons
producer" with almost exactly the oposite results for "toy producer" and
"toys producer" (365 and 119)
>
> > By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English usage.
>
Well, I noticed that after I wrote the message, but it was too late.
Best regards,
Miroslav
CyberCypher
>>
>> > It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any
>> > context. Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.
>>
>> Yes, yes. A complete sentence, by all means. Like the previous
>> two and this one.
>
> Huh-uh..... a complete sentence?
Technically, all three of my sentences are "complete sentences". They
are normal English, quite grammatical in context, and they begin with
a capital and end with a period. Okay, so they're fragments, but they
are complete utterances. The rule about needing a subject and
predicate is a bit unyielding and unrealistic.
> That was a technical document I
> had to correct some few weeks ago, and it had a chapter with a
> title: "Tasks machine description".
Technical documents often contain expressions that would never occur
in a more reasonable non-technical kind of English. Medical English
contains some doozies too. There really isn't anything one can do
about them unless one knows exactly what they mean and exactly what
they should be. To know how to render "tasks machine" correctly, we
would have to be able to read the description of what the machine
does. You've got that description. It is quite possible that there is
some technical term "tasks machine". I always go to the Internet and
check out the medical publications for usage problems. If something
like that occurred in one of the papers I edit, I'd go to PubMed,
type in "tasks machine", and see how many hits I got in the NHI
database of millions of medical articles. If I couldn't find any, I'd
go to Google and do the same thing. After checking out both sources,
I'd probably have all the info I needed to decide what "tasks
machine" should be and how to use it. No guarantees, of course.
Sometimes I come up empty, so I have to ask the author.
> I couldn't change it too much
> because it would be incosistent with the heading style used in the
> rest of the document. I don't remeber now how it was exactly
> further in the text, but that unfortunate "tasks machine" concept
> was coming back every now and then. I was really tempted to leave
> it as it was.
I read your original post, so I know what you were asking. I was just
having a bit of fun with david56 there. He claimed in his reply that
there was no such thing as Standard English, so I wanted to shake him
up a bit by saying some of-the-wall things.
I don't remember if anyone mentioned that there's a significant
difference between British English and American on the point of
plural attributive noun-adjectives like "drug company" (American) and
"drugs company" (British, I think). In general, British English
allows plurals but American doesn't. It's not a big deal except for
the customer, and the customer is always right about that sort of
thing.
> After that, I started wondering when it is possible to use plural
> in a compound noun and when it is not.
>
> It seems to me that in a such technical material, if a concept is
> defined earlier and consistenly used throughout the document, it
> could be allowed for a compound noun which describes the concept
> to have plural in it?
Yes, you're right. It's always possible that the document is defining
a new term, and who are you or who is anyone else to say that the
inventor of the term cannot spell it any way that he or she chooses
to. As long as the term is used consistently thoughout the document,
it doesn't matter if it violates the so-called rules of Standard
English. All languages allow for that kind of exception.
> And definitely YES if it is used consistenly
> as "tasks machine" or "tasks" machine. And that's what my question
> was about.
>
>
> An interesting thing:
> Google found 125 occurences of "weapon producer" and 366 for
> "weapons producer" with almost exactly the oposite results for
> "toy producer" and "toys producer" (365 and 119)
>
>
>>
>> > By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English
>> > usage.
>>
>
> Well, I noticed that after I wrote the message, but it was too
> late.
--
david56
> "M.Jovanovic" <NOSPAMv...@poczta.onet.pl> wrote on 28 Nov 2003:
>
> > I couldn't change it too much
> > because it would be incosistent with the heading style used in the
> > rest of the document. I don't remeber now how it was exactly
> > further in the text, but that unfortunate "tasks machine" concept
> > was coming back every now and then. I was really tempted to leave
> > it as it was.
>
> I read your original post, so I know what you were asking. I was just
> having a bit of fun with david56 there. He claimed in his reply that
> there was no such thing as Standard English, so I wanted to shake him
> up a bit by saying some of-the-wall things.
I remain unshook. And, BTW, Oy!
--
David
=====
CyberCypher
No "Oy!"s allowed for seeming to have violated the rules of Standard
English, even what might be construed as a spelling error. "off-the-
wall" means whatever it is bounced or rebounded, but "of-the-wall"
means that whatever it is dislodged and fell while one was sleeping
perpendicular to and beneath it. Hasn't that ever happened to you?
Don Phillipson
news:bq7dqb$om4$1...@news.onet.pl...
Well, if it is not clear, it is not good English:
and this particular use of quotation marks
does not seem clearly an emphasis. A few
more words will probably do the task better.
The primary notion of "compound nouns" may
be defective. "Cricket bat" looks like a compound
noun -- but there is a far older grammatical
description, that this is the noun bat described by
the word cricket, also a noun but here used
"in apposition." This description seems allso
to apply to "task machine" and "toy producer"
and scores more, e.g. "sheep farmer" "hardware
salesman."
(Tasks machine seems an unidiomatic phrase
-- not for any grammatical reason but because
all machines are supposed to perform tasks.
Perhaps every machine is a task machine.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
Eric Walker
[...]
>However, I'd like to clear one more issue:
>
>Is it legal to leave a noun in plural, if I put it under
>quotation marks - tasks machine is incorrect, but what if I
>use it like this: ... "tasks" machine ... with the intention
>of emphasizing something?
Broadly speaking, that is harmless if not employed as a regular
practice. If the context has repeatedly referred to _tasks_
(or any noun in the plural, let's say Xs) *and* the ordinary
form "X machine" (or "X whatever") for some reason seems
inadequate, one can use the "Xs" machine (or whatever) form as
a nonce form.
I am straining to come up with a generalization, but I suppose
the usage--again, as a nonce form--would pass muster if the
normal term "X whatever" seems to describe a nonexistent or
impossible kind of thing. One might say that one does not get
one's creative ideas from some "ideas" machine in one's brain,
or some unusual thing like that.
One could also use the form, as a nonce form, if the "Xs" at
issue is regarded as unlikely or unreal, at least in connection
with the "machine" or whatever. I cannot at once think of an
example.
Finally, we use the plural Xs--without quotation marks--when
the singular would deceive. "As a small-time actor, he earned
most of his money in cheap sci-fi movies as a Martians
portrayer." A device to locate concealed cigarettes (as might
be used by border police to stop smuggling) would be, in
colloquial, a smokes detector, not a smoke detector.
But the quotation marks, even when tolerable, which is rarely,
are not for "emphasis"--they denote what they contain as not
exactly what the phrase suggests.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
My opinions on English are available at
http://owlcroft.com/english/