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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Vocabulary

small-town

Hi,

"He started life as a tubby kid from small-town Pennsylvania."

"The film explores the life of small-town America in the 1930s."

It seems that the "small-town"s above are used as "a small town in." Are they? Is there any possibility that they mean "a small town called (Pennsylvania/America)"?

(I know Pennsylvania and America are not "small." What I'm wondering is if the writer might have ironically called them "small.")

Thanks.
  

Top answer

No. Small-town is being used as an adjective here.

— Elanguest

  • No.
  • Small-town is being used as an adjective here.
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6 Answers
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No. Emotion: smileSmall-town is being used as an adjective here.
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Thank you for your reply, Elanguest.
ElanguestSmall-town is being used as an adjective here.
That's why these sentences sound strange to me. Adjectives are used to describes a person or thing, or gives extra information about them. For example, "a big city" means "the city is big." So "small-town Pennsylvania" means "Pennsylvania is small," doesn't it?

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Sorry, "describes a person or thing, or gives extra information about them."
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Small-town, the two words together joined by a hyphen, is the adjective. It is not saying that a town is small, but that an area of Pennsylvania is characterised by a small-town atmosphere. It is, as you said, more like the way the word downtown is used in downtown Manhattan. Small-townas an adjective brings to mind places in rural America where everyone knows each other, peop
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Thank you, Elanguest!
It was a great help!
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