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While English has compound nouns, they are different in that they are not (generally) single words. For example, the lovely and memorable Donaudampfschiffahrt
by sib 1y ago
While English has compound nouns, they are different in that they are not (generally) single words.
For example, the lovely and memorable
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
would be translated into something like
"Association for Subordinate Officials of the Main Maintenance Building of the Danube Steamboat Shipping Company"
- philwelch 1y agoIt just takes longer to standardize them but English absolutely has compound single words. Examples include “folklore”, “pancake”, “manslaughter”, “oatmeal”, “pocketknife”, and “gunman”.
- TulliusCicero 1y agoRight, they're just typically limited to two subwords.
- sib 1y agoAnd you can't typically just make them up as you go along and have them accepted as "words."
- philwelch 1y agoAlbeit rare, triple compound words are nonetheless commonly used and recognized in English. Many of them sound formal and archaic but they are nevertheless still in common usage nowadays, not merely a relic of the days of highwaymen and crossbowmen. The archaic examples heretofore used notwithstanding, it would be false to claim that there are no triple compound words whatsoever. (Inasmuch as I've made my point, I will spare you any further woebegone prose.)
- joenada 1y agoThis guy writes.
- knome 1y agoSquashing "danube steamboat shipping company electric services main maintenance building subordinate officials association" into a single word vs leaving it spaced out is kind of irrelevant. It's like getting excited over PascalCase vs snake_case.
- swinglock 1y agoInstead try for example "washing machine motor" and you'll find it's a feature fixing issues with clarity, not a style preference.
- cubefox 1y agoThat translation is inaccurate because the original is a compound noun, while your translation isn't. The translation posted by knome is more accurate. > While English has compound nouns, they are different in that they are not (generally) single words. That's if you define "word" as anything that is separated by spaces in writing. But you could instead count all compound nouns as words. That would have the advantage of not being dependent on arbitrary rules in the writing system.