VO phrases
Some time ago, I was in a linguistics class (Fundamentals of English Syntax) and the professor said, tangentially, that pickpocket was an aberrant English word because it was VO (verb-object). The rule is OV - things like "car park" and "bell hop" and "self serve" and "shin guard" and "buzz kill".
At the time I could only think of one other VO - cutthroat. Since then, I also came up with scofflaw and - with the suffix -er - dogooder (compare "party pooper" or "heart breaker").
But last night I was watching a Little Rascals short ("Shiver My Timbers"), and heard Weezer say: "Ah, don't be such a joy killer."
So now I've got another: killjoy.
Labels: english, entertainment
5 Comments:
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At 10:49 AM, January 06, 2011
Kathie had this to say...
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At 11:33 AM, January 06, 2011
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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At 5:00 PM, January 06, 2011
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 5:37 PM, January 06, 2011
AbbotOfUnreason had this to say...
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At 5:37 PM, January 06, 2011
AbbotOfUnreason had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->Thanks (?) to the Pentagon: Stop-loss.
Oh, my. How could I have forgotten that one???
It seems odd to me for anyone to claim that English behaves in any certain way... because one can always find as many counterexamples as one wants to.
A related sort of one that always strikes me:
Q: What do you call an American of Italian descent?
A: An Italian American.
Q: What do you call a Bosnian of Serbian descent?
A: A Bosnian Serb.
Q: Explain.
As someone I used to know used to say: "For every rule of thumb [extends thumb from closed fist] there are four exceptions [opens hand and waves fingers]."
So is parking lot not because parking is acting as an adjective?
Can we call Barry a waggle-finger?
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