So a word that is otherwise a noun gets to stay a noun when it modifies another noun, but we seemingly don't get to use a word that is otherwise an adjective and transform it to a noun when it modifies a noun. Aside from adjectives marching with "Unfair!" signs, is this just how it is? Or are there adjectives that become nouns when modifying nouns? Returning to "cornbread", that is obviously a noun, but it's also a single word. Oh! But 'corn' is also a noun. So even if it weren't a single word, it's not an example. "whitewash" is...well, really is it a noun formed from an adjective plus a verb? But anyway, it's one word, not a phrase. Huh. So I'm trying to think of an adjective+noun phrase that we regard as a noun. No such thing?
Well... the whole POINT of an adjective is that it's a word that modifies a noun. So there's no switching to be done, b/c... it's in its original role. We might sometimes use adjectives as nouns in other contexts... like, we might say "She was kind to the elderly" - "elderly" is an adjective, but in that context it's doing the job of a noun. I think there's a possible argument that ANY adjective + noun phrase could be considered a compound noun, but that seems to be eliminating the point of adjectives entirely? Adjective + noun is the normal, expected structure, and I don't think it requires any twisting or weirdness to label it. Oh! Wait! How about when it actually becomes a title? Like... a white house = adjective + noun, but The White House = compound noun, composed of an adjective and a noun?
Yes! Yes, that's an example. What about species names? For example, white-tailed deer and red snapper?
I don't know... I guess? I mean, a red snapper is a distinct kind of animal. (fish? turtle?). You could, I assume, have an albino red snapper that would actually be white, and it would still be a red snapper, which suggests the "red" isn't really functioning as a modifier, there. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think that makes sense. And if you had, say, a Gray Snapper that freakishly turned red, it would be a red Gray Snapper but not a Red Snapper. Maybe the key is that the adjective defines a thing that has agreed-on attributes that are not fully described by the bare adjective without associated context. Edited to add: No, I don't think that's enough. I continue to think.
I think it might work. There's extra meaning imparted by the compoundness of the compound noun. "Oh there's a snapper!" "And he's red!" "Is he a red snapper?" "I'm not sure... I'd need more information."
Merriam-Webster tells me that learnt is "chiefly British past tense and past participle of LEARN". So, primarily UK.
I feel like an American trapped in a British person's body, and a constant tourist sometimes. I'm just going to mentally file 'learnt' as a part of that then.
The Oxford English Dictionary - I'm afraid to look up airplane as I'm afraid it'll be in there and make the word 'airplane' UK English. IDK... I might say something like 'see aeroplane' or something, IDK. I'm going to try and do that now with the internet.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/airplane It's a North American word that made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, does that mean that it's now in BE/British English?
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/aeroplane I say this. I don't say aeroport though, nobody in English says aeroport, I say airport and aeroplane.
Anything can be a noun if you use it to name something. Burnt Toast is a noun if that's how I name the object. Whether it's a TV or bread burned in a toaster..
And I can verbify literally any noun, but that doesn't mean it forms a distinct pattern in the English language that coincides with geography or nationality.
I think it's hard to do for America, since every state has their own slang. Soda can be called soda, pop, or coke. Drinking fountains can be called bubbler. Wicked nasty and wicked awesome mean the same thing, but nasty and awesome do not. And only in Massachusetts. Just so many localized things.
The south has their own slang. Never heard of ramps (wild onions) before I moved to West Virginia. Or pepperoni rolls. Shopping carts are buggies here.
A couple to do with the dead: Americans use the term autopsy, whereas the British call them a post mortem. Also, in the UK the correct term for where bodies are held is a mortuary. American crime dramas do prompt common usage of the word 'morgue' in this context and it is is a good way to annoy a mortician (source: Past Mortems by Carla Valentine). I believe it's to differentiate from learned (pronounced 'learn-ed') which means someone who is knowledgeable through study.
Hi all, I'm editing my novel and I would greatly appreciate any help here. I am British and my novel is set in America. The language I have used is American, trash instead of rubbish etc, yet I was wondering if I should use American spellings also? I have been thus far, yet I am unsure as to whether this would be an issue in regards to sending to agents? Would a mix be an issue? Or is it better for me to stick with American spellings? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I'm Canadian and use US spellings for books set in the US - it seems to work. Actually, I use US spellings for books set in Canada, too, since my publishers are American. Canadian words, American spelling... weird, but it seems to be what they expect.
I don't know about British English, but here the term "post mortem" has expanded to include any retrospective examination of a situation. (We often hear of "post mortems" after elections, for example.) But "autopsy" is usually restricted to a forensic medical examination of a corpse to determine cause of death, unless it's being used metaphorically. Well, in the US "morgue" and "mortuary" mean two different things. A morgue is run by a city or state agency, while a mortuary is a private concern, usually equated with a "funeral home." A mortician is one who prepares a body for viewing or embalming in such a private concern. He or she does not perform autopsies; those are done by medical examiners or "coroners" (a term which as strayed somewhat from its original meaning as someone who conducts investigations in the name of the Crown, although it retains the denotation that it's done by a government agency.)
Save source as above, we do use the term coroner for the lead examiner, but their assistants (Anatomical Pathology Technologist is the full term) use the term mortician as well (Valentine worked in this role for about a decade before writing at the pathological museum at St Bartholomew's Hospital and has a long chapter about the terminology from an insider's perspective). The term I know for someone who works in funeral services is an undertaker. She wrote a chapter about identifying the dead in the wake of 7/7 as well. Harrowing stuff. She wrote that the morgue/mortuary line was a particular pet peeve.
I'm curious where you're from. Out West, I don't think we'd ever use the word "mortuary" to describe a funeral home. And out here, someone who works in one is called an undertaker, at least as far as I've ever heard. Maybe its usage is more formal?
My upbringing has been mostly east coast, particularly the mid-Atlantic region, although my family is from upstate New York. From a cursory examination of the various on-line dictionaries, the American ones list "mortuary" (in its context as a noun) as synonymous with "funeral home," while the British ones simply define it as "a room or building in which dead bodies are kept, for hygienic storage or for examination, until burial or cremation." So that could apply to both private enterprises or government ones, I suppose. I've always thought that an "undertaker" was one who oversaw the whole operation of organizing funerals, burials, cremations, and so on (synonymous with "funeral director") while a mortician was one who dealt directly with the corpse (embalming, dressing, and cosmetics). So while many undertakers are also morticians, they don't have to be. They can just have morticians on their staffs to do that work. And, again, "mortician" may have a quite different definition in UK English, extending to forensic examinations. I'll let someone more conversant in Britspeak handle that.
