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Actually this is a point if you are not writing in English. My dad used to do some technical translations and he disliked English namely because you cannot inv
by erk__ 4y ago
Actually this is a point if you are not writing in English.
My dad used to do some technical translations and he disliked English namely because you cannot invent words like in Danish or German, where you can just put words together to make a new one.
- tshaddox 4y agoWe can and regularly do invent compound words in English too. We just write them with spaces between each word. As far as I know, this is just a minor difference in orthography with little effect on the ability to create (even arbitrarily long) compounds.
- torstenvl 4y agoExactly. I once read a linguistics text that called these a particular form of complex noun phrase, but that doesn't appear to be a standard term. Regardless, English allows you to use a noun as an adjective almost anywhere, without adding any suffix. A web font (which is not a web). A computer engineer (which is not a computer). A grocery trip (which is not a grocery). And so on. This is just like other Germanic languages, we just don't erase the space between components of the word.
- k_roy 4y agohaha. Just saw a meme with this recently. "Achtung! Blinkenlights! Nicht für der gefingerpoken!"