Compund nouns 2

Question

Hello.Thanks everyone for your answers last week to my question concerning compound nouns (task machine, toy producer). However, I'd like to clear one more issue:Is it legal to leave a noun in plural, if I put it under quotation marks - tasks machine is incorrect, but what if I use it like this: ... "tasks" machine ...with the intention of emphasizing something?Best regards,Miroslav

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Hello. Thanks everyone for your answers last week to my question concerning compound nouns (task machine, toy producer). However, I'd ... is incorrect, but what if I use it like this: ... "tasks" machine ... with the intention of emphasizing something?[/nq]
It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any context. Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.

By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English usage. There is no "standard" English and there is no body to say what is right and wrong.

David
==

Usenet · Answer

david56 (Email Removed) wrote on 28 Nov 2003:
[nq:2]Hello. Thanks everyone for your answers last week to my ... if I use it like this: ... "tasks" machine ...[/nq]
I think this is a bit chickenshit, myself. Rather than using a confusing adjective like tasks in scare quotes before the noun it modifies, why not just stick it into a complement phrase that follows "machine"? Then you could say cool things like "a machine that does/performs tasks" or "a machine that tirelessly completes all tasks" or "a machine to which tasks are a piece of motoroil-cake".
[nq:2]with the intention of emphasizing something?[/nq]
You'd be emphasizing a linguistic weakness only (sic).
[nq:1]It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any context. Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.[/nq]
Yes, yes. A complete sentence, by all means. Like the previous two and this one.
[nq:1]By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English usage.[/nq]
No. That applies only to the language police, the guys who arrest you when you say illegal things like "I want to bleep the blarp" when you're at the airport or in front of the White House or wherever.
[nq:1]There is no "standard" English[/nq]
Watch out, David. Such sentiments can get you into lots of trouble with long-winded people. I merely suggested that earlier this week and was duly taken to task for my heresy.
[nq:1]and there is no body to say what is right and wrong.[/nq]
There may be no body, but that doesn't mean murder has not been committed over words. And there are plenty of us who'll be happy to say what is right and wrong, even without being payed (sic) or obeyed.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]It looks very strange, but it's difficult to say without any context. Can you give us a complete sentence as an example.[/nq]
[nq:1]Yes, yes. A complete sentence, by all means. Like the previous two and this one.[/nq]
Huh-uh.. a complete sentence? That was a technical document I had to correct some few weeks ago, and it had a chapter with a title: "Tasks machine description" . I couldn't change it too much because it would be incosistent with the heading style used in the rest of the document. I don't remeber now how it was exactly further in the text, but that unfortunate "tasks machine" concept was coming back every now and then. I was really tempted to leave it as it was.
After that, I started wondering when it is possible to use plural in a compound noun and when it is not.
It seems to me that in a such technical material, if a concept is defined earlier and consistenly used throughout the document, it could be allowed for a compound noun which describes the concept to have plural in it? And definitely YES if it is used consistenly as "tasks machine" or "tasks" machine. And that's what my question was about.
An interesting thing:
Google found 125 occurences of "weapon producer" and 366 for "weapons producer" with almost exactly the oposite results for "toy producer" and "toys producer" (365 and 119)
[nq:2]By the way, "legal" is not a good word to apply to English usage.[/nq]
Well, I noticed that after I wrote the message, but it was too late.

Best regards,
Miroslav

Usenet · Answer

"M.Jovanovic" (Email Removed) wrote on 28 Nov 2003:
[nq:2]Yes, yes. A complete sentence, by all means. Like the previous two and this one.[/nq]
[nq:1]Huh-uh.. a complete sentence?[/nq]
Technically, all three of my sentences are "complete sentences". They are normal English, quite grammatical in context, and they begin with a capital and end with a period. Okay, so they're fragments, but they are complete utterances. The rule about needing a subject and predicate is a bit unyielding and unrealistic.
[nq:1]That was a technical document I had to correct some few weeks ago, and it had a chapter with a title: "Tasks machine description".[/nq]Technical documents often contain expressions that would never occur in a more reasonable non-technical kind of English. Medical English contains some doozies too. There really isn't anything one can do about them unless one knows exactly what they mean and exactly what they should be. To know how to render "tasks machine" correctly, we would have to be able to read the description of what the machine does. You've got that description. It is quite possible that there is some technical term "tasks machine".

I always go to the Internet and check out the medical publications for usage problems. If something like that occurred in one of the papers I edit, I'd go to PubMed, type in "tasks machine", and see how many hits I got in the NHI database of millions of medical articles. If I couldn't find any, I'd go to Google and do the same thing. After checking out both sources, I'd probably have all the info I needed to decide what "tasks machine" should be and how to use it.

No guarantees, of course. Sometimes I come up empty, so I have to ask the author.
[nq:1]I couldn't change it too much because it would be incosistent with the heading style used in the rest of ... "tasks machine" concept was coming back every now and then. I was really tempted to leave it as it was.[/nq]
I read your original post, so I know what you were asking. I was just having a bit of fun with david56 there. He claimed in his reply that there was no such thing as Standard English, so I wanted to shake him up a bit by saying some of-the-wall things.
I don't remember if anyone mentioned that there's a significant difference between British English and American on the point of plural attributive noun-adjectives like "drug company" (American) and "drugs company" (British, I think). In general, British English allows plurals but American doesn't. It's not a big deal except for the customer, and the customer is always right about that sort of thing.
[nq:1]After that, I started wondering when it is possible to use plural in a compound noun and when it is ... throughout the document, it could be allowed for a compound noun which describes the concept to have plural in it?[/nq]
Yes, you're right. It's always possible that the document is defining a new term, and who are you or who is anyone else to say that the inventor of the term cannot spell it any way that he or she chooses to. As long as the term is used consistently thoughout the document, it doesn't matter if it violates the so-called rules of Standard English. All languages allow for that kind of exception.
[nq:1]And definitely YES if it is used consistenly as "tasks machine" or "tasks" machine. And that's what my question was ... and "toys producer" (365 and 119) Well, I noticed that after I wrote the message, but it was too late.[/nq]
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I couldn't change it too much because it would be ... I was really tempted to leave it as it was.[/nq]
[nq:1]I read your original post, so I know what you were asking. I was just having a bit of fun ... no such thing as Standard English, so I wanted to shake him up a bit by saying some of-the-wall things.[/nq]
I remain unshook. And, BTW, Oy!

David
==

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david56 (Email Removed) wrote on 28 Nov 2003:
[nq:1]I remain unshook. And, BTW, Oy![/nq]
No "Oy!"s allowed for seeming to have violated the rules of Standard English, even what might be construed as a spelling error. "off-the- wall" means whatever it is bounced or rebounded, but "of-the-wall" means that whatever it is dislodged and fell while one was sleeping perpendicular to and beneath it. Hasn't that ever happened to you?

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hello. Thanks everyone for your answers last week to my question concerning compound nouns (task machine, toy producer). However, I'd ... is incorrect, but what if I use it like this: ... "tasks" machine ... with the intention of emphasizing something?[/nq]
Well, if it is not clear, it is not good English:
and this particular use of quotation marks
does not seem clearly an emphasis. A few
more words will probably do the task better.
The primary notion of "compound nouns" may
be defective. "Cricket bat" looks like a compound noun but there is a far older grammatical
description, that this is the noun bat described by the word cricket, also a noun but here used
"in apposition." This description seems allso
to apply to "task machine" and "toy producer"
and scores more, e.g. "sheep farmer" "hardware
salesman."
(Tasks machine seems an unidiomatic phrase
not for any grammatical reason but because
all machines are supposed to perform tasks.
Perhaps every machine is a task machine.)

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]However, I'd like to clear one more issue: Is it legal to leave a noun in plural, if I put ... is incorrect, but what if I use it like this: ... "tasks" machine ... with the intention of emphasizing something?[/nq]
Broadly speaking, that is harmless if not employed as a regular practice. If the context has repeatedly referred to tasks (or any noun in the plural, let's say Xs) and the ordinary form "X machine" (or "X whatever") for some reason seems inadequate, one can use the "Xs" machine (or whatever) form as a nonce form.
I am straining to come up with a generalization, but I suppose the usage again, as a nonce form would pass muster if the normal term "X whatever" seems to describe a nonexistent or impossible kind of thing. One might say that one does not get one's creative ideas from some "ideas" machine in one's brain, or some unusual thing like that.
One could also use the form, as a nonce form, if the "Xs" at issue is regarded as unlikely or unreal, at least in connection with the "machine" or whatever. I cannot at once think of an example.
Finally, we use the plural Xs without quotation marks when the singular would deceive. "As a small-time actor, he earned most of his money in cheap sci-fi movies as a Martians portrayer." A device to locate concealed cigarettes (as might be used by border police to stop smuggling) would be, in colloquial, a smokes detector, not a smoke detector.

But the quotation marks, even when tolerable, which is rarely, are not for "emphasis" they denote what they contain as not exactly what the phrase suggests.

Cordially,
Eric Walker
My opinions on English are available at
http://owlcroft.com/english/

Compund nouns 2

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