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Point taken, I made a mistake, but I think you're so focused on picking apart the comment that you've ignored the meat of it. That's ok, I said my piece and exp

by defined 10y ago

Point taken, I made a mistake, but I think you're so focused on picking apart the comment that you've ignored the meat of it. That's ok, I said my piece and expected it to be downvoted - and it was.

deleted 10y ago
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3131s 10y ago
I'll upvote you (although technically HN doesn't like meta-commentary about upvotes / downvotes) because you made your point well. I don't have an issue with every "error" on that page and I have no problem with style guidelines for writing, but the problem comes when the prescriptivists think that logic is on their side when they opine on subjective stylistic and dialectic issues. "Ice tea" is a perfect example. The author of that site argues that "iced tea is not literally made of ice, it simply is 'iced': has ice put into it.". Apparently he is unaware of English's enormous fondness for attributive nouns. By his reasoning, we should all be saying "appled pie", or "apple-infused pie", or something crazy like that. I also have a more general problem with prescriptivism because frequently it is used to justify a certain type of racist and classist thought.
- hueving 10y ago
  Apple pie is not the same thing as "ice tea". Apple is describing the type of pie. "ice" is not a type of tea.
  - 3131s 10y ago
    "Ice" is not a type of tea, but ice tea is a type of tea just as apple pie is a type of pie. I see no difference. Ice tea is tea with ice in it, apple pie is pie with apples in it.
    - hueving 10y ago
      >but ice tea is a type of tea No it's not. "Ice" or (more appropriately IMO) "iced" a state of tea. Find me 'ice' or 'iced' on this page: https://www.teasource.com/pages/types-of-tea https://www.teasource.com/pages/types-of-tea Nobody is making tea from ice. If they were, then you could call it 'ice tea'.
      - 3131s 10y ago
        Ok, even if I accept that, it's not a reason to prefer the term "iced tea" to "ice tea". Ice algae are not made from ice, for example -- they are algae that are found in ice. The point is that in noun-noun compounding, the semantic relationship between the two nouns varies widely from case to case (far more widely than the distinction we are nitpicking over between "apple pie" and "ice(d) tea"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_algae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_algae EDIT: one more example, is it also wrong to say "bubble tea"?
        hueving 10y ago
        >they are algae that are found in ice Which makes sense, because it's referring to a type of algae found in ice. If there were a type of tea that only grew or were only found in ice, then it might make sense to call it 'ice tea'. However, that's not the case because it's regular tea that has been 'iced'.
        3131s 10y ago
        You are not getting my point. The relationship between two nouns in a noun-noun compound is very flexible. Sometimes it means the head noun is made out of the attributive noun ("apple pie"), sometimes it means the head noun is found in the attributive noun ("ice algae"), sometimes it means something completely different (how about "ice axe"?). So, because that relationship is so flexible, it's just not absurd to consider that in the case of "ice tea" the relationship is that the head noun contains the attributive noun, as is exactly the case with "bubble tea" and many other NN compound examples. And I will say again that the semantic relationship between "is made out of" and "contains" is so, so similar. Given the huge variety of acceptable semantic relationships between two nouns in a NN compound, it's really ridiculous to claim that "contains" is not acceptable whereas "is made out of" is, especially so when there are tons of examples of the "contains" relationship that staunch prescriptivists never object to (again, "bubble tea").
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by defined 10y ago

Point taken, I made a mistake, but I think you're so focused on picking apart the comment that you've ignored the meat of it. That's ok, I said my piece and expected it to be downvoted - and it was.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

3131s 10y ago

I'll upvote you (although technically HN doesn't like meta-commentary about upvotes / downvotes) because you made your point well. I don't have an issue with every "error" on that page and I have no problem with style guidelines for writing, but the problem comes when the prescriptivists think that logic is on their side when they opine on subjective stylistic and dialectic issues. "Ice tea" is a perfect example. The author of that site argues that "iced tea is not literally made of ice, it simply is 'iced': has ice put into it.". Apparently he is unaware of English's enormous fondness for attributive nouns. By his reasoning, we should all be saying "appled pie", or "apple-infused pie", or something crazy like that. I also have a more general problem with prescriptivism because frequently it is used to justify a certain type of racist and classist thought.

hueving 10y ago
Apple pie is not the same thing as "ice tea". Apple is describing the type of pie. "ice" is not a type of tea.
- 3131s 10y ago
  "Ice" is not a type of tea, but ice tea is a type of tea just as apple pie is a type of pie. I see no difference. Ice tea is tea with ice in it, apple pie is pie with apples in it.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >but ice tea is a type of tea No it's not. "Ice" or (more appropriately IMO) "iced" a state of tea. Find me 'ice' or 'iced' on this page: https://www.teasource.com/pages/types-of-tea https://www.teasource.com/pages/types-of-tea Nobody is making tea from ice. If they were, then you could call it 'ice tea'.
    - 3131s 10y ago
      Ok, even if I accept that, it's not a reason to prefer the term "iced tea" to "ice tea". Ice algae are not made from ice, for example -- they are algae that are found in ice. The point is that in noun-noun compounding, the semantic relationship between the two nouns varies widely from case to case (far more widely than the distinction we are nitpicking over between "apple pie" and "ice(d) tea"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_algae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_algae EDIT: one more example, is it also wrong to say "bubble tea"?
      - hueving 10y ago
        >they are algae that are found in ice Which makes sense, because it's referring to a type of algae found in ice. If there were a type of tea that only grew or were only found in ice, then it might make sense to call it 'ice tea'. However, that's not the case because it's regular tea that has been 'iced'.
        3131s 10y ago
        You are not getting my point. The relationship between two nouns in a noun-noun compound is very flexible. Sometimes it means the head noun is made out of the attributive noun ("apple pie"), sometimes it means the head noun is found in the attributive noun ("ice algae"), sometimes it means something completely different (how about "ice axe"?). So, because that relationship is so flexible, it's just not absurd to consider that in the case of "ice tea" the relationship is that the head noun contains the attributive noun, as is exactly the case with "bubble tea" and many other NN compound examples. And I will say again that the semantic relationship between "is made out of" and "contains" is so, so similar. Given the huge variety of acceptable semantic relationships between two nouns in a NN compound, it's really ridiculous to claim that "contains" is not acceptable whereas "is made out of" is, especially so when there are tons of examples of the "contains" relationship that staunch prescriptivists never object to (again, "bubble tea").

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