#compound word

[wolke-lila]

Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher

der Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher

German for a decive that breaks eggshell at the right spot/ egg cracker lit.: eggshell predetermined break point causing device

[superlinguo]

English is really into making new works by compounding existing words. Think of many tech words from the last 50 years: laptop, smart phone, web browser, hard drive.

This compounding isn’t a new habit.

All of the above were Old English compounds for things that we have subsequently used other (but not necessarily better) words for.

All of these come from Kevin Stroud’s The History of English Podcast. Errand ghost (angel) and candle tree (candelabrum) come from episode 40 and light vessel (lamp), battle light (sword), ground apple (cucumber) and far sibling (cousin) come from episode 41. I thought they deserved to be memed.

Image credits: Angel, Candelabra, Cucumber via Wikipedia. Lamp and Sword via Pixabay. IRL cousins via People.

[danskjavlarna]

“He feeds on generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen and paté de foie gras.”  From Fortnightly Philistine, 1900.

Monsters of every stripe are collected here.

[interretialia]

Plura de “Supernolo” / More Stuff about “Supernolo”

I have been thinking a little more about the new compound supernolo.

There was a point where I came to a realization: although my reasoning for forms like super non vis and super non vult may be coherent and cogent, I started to find these forms aesthetically unpleasing--ugly even. The main reason I am not particularly fond of them now is that there are gaps between the word elements.  Furthermore, I began to wonder how an inseparable prefix like re(d)- would work with a form like non vis when such a prefix is supposed to modify both parts, not just one of them. It was then that I decided to look for a way to solve this problem.

Below describes what I have come up with as a solution.

The non-separated forms of nolo (e.g. nolumus, nolunt, and nolo itself) are compounds of the negative particle ne (not the adverb non, believe it or not) and the respective forms of volo. Various Latin phonetic rules turned the -evo- into -o- like so:

nevolo → nolo,

nevolumus → nolumus,

nevolunt → nolunt, etc.

The separated inflected forms of the verb nolo use non instead:

non vis,

non vult,

non vultis.

But there are actually non-separated forms of these that have been used:

nevis,

nevolt,

noltis.

These, just like nolo and nolumus and nolunt, make use of the ne. Volt corresponds to the later vult, so nevolt corresponds to nevult. The contracted noltis is irregular because vultis (voltis being the older form) regularly appears as itself elsewhere and does not regularly contract:

vultis (voltis) in the inflection of volo,

non vultis in the inflection of nolo,

mavultis in the inflection of malo.

Therefore, the regularized versions of nevis, nevolt, and noltis are:

nevis,

nevult,

nevultis.

What this means is that these would be the regular forms of nolo if the individual parts of non volo, non vis, and non vult were not separated.  Also notice how much they correspond to their respective forms of malo:

nevis is like mavis,

nevult is like mavult,

nevultis is like mavultis.

And notice the differences between those and these:

nolo is like malo,

nolumus is like malumus,

nolunt is like malunt.

This reflects the general trend among the non-vocalic irregular verbs whereby the present active forms are either thematic or athematic. The thematic forms are the first person singular, the first person plural, and the third person plural, whereas the athematic forms are the second person singular, the third person singular, and the second person plural:

Thematic: sum, sumus, sunt and fero, ferimus, ferunt;

Athematic: es, est, estis and fers, fert, fertis.

Thus, since we can ascertain the non-separated forms of nolo, we can say that volo and its two compounds work this way without separated parts:

These non-separated forms of nolo, which are implied by its inflection, give us the opportunity to use super with the verb nolo without having to deal with things like super non vis and whatnot.

A compound of nolo with the super prefix thus works like this:

As far as I am concerned, these look a lot better than the gap-ridden forms like super non vis!

A compound with the inseparable prefix re(d)- works this way:

But, of course, if we want to use super to emphasize the non in non vis rather than the entire verb, we would still use Lana’s supernon vis, etc.

[acosmicsuperstar]

Normal people: Breakfast is your morning meal.

Me: If you’re on the road and something is about to get in your way/crash into you, you must BREAK FAST!!!

[fromarmageddon]

Backfire

Compound Word Project Black and White Icon Graphic Design Illustrator

[trolledu]

[lucypireel]

How To Use The Hyphen The Right Way

An easy and good rule of thumb would be to check whether or not the compound noun is towards, one word, or hyphenated is to look it up in the dictionary. I do suggest to use a proper dictionary and not some urban online dictionary, although the online Oxford or Cambridge dictionary are very good.

Anyway, if it’s not in there treat it as two words. Simple and can’t really go wrong, but you’d like…

[mainmenu558]

[mwsrwritings]

Word of the Week

Word of the Week

Dvandva dvandva

Eastern Religions, Grammara compound word neither element of which is subordinate to the other, as bittersweet, Anglo-Saxon.

[trolledu]

[s-klein]

Compound Logo

Fall 2018. This assignment I choose the compound word jackrabbit. The purpose of this project was to understand the basics of creating a logo. In this assignment you had to create two objects from the compound word and create an interesting logo.

[kathydavie]

Word Confusion: Stow Away versus Stowaway

Word Confusion: Stow Away versus Stowaway

Aha, so this is the little stowaway who stowed away in this Word Confusion. Yep, it’s noun versus verbal phrase, so the captain may find a stowaway onboard, who may have stowed himself away in the cargo hold, but the cap’n will never find his sailors stowing away the cargo sloppily.

Word Confusions…

…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that…

[basics-of-writing-and-some-vocab]

Stock Epithet

a specific kind of epithet where a compound word is used as an adjective before a noun. 

a compound word is hyphenated 

example: “the red-haired girl” 

[compoundcompound]

Lamp•shade: n. a protective ornamental covering used to screen the light bulb in a lamp from direct view.