box set

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Wednesday, January 30, 2002 3:21 pm -0500 Mark A Mandel
<mam at THEWORLD.COM> wrote:

> I see references to "box sets" of books and CDs rather than the "boxed
> sets" I'm used to, and likewise "bottle water" instead of "bottled
> water". Is there a trend to simplifying such expressions? The
> generalization from these two examples would be
>
>         N1+-ed  N2  =>  N1  N2
>
> substituting N1, an attributive noun, for the older N1+-ed, an adjective
> in the form of the past participle of the verb that is zero-derived from
> the noun. To put a set of volumes in a box is to "box" them, creating a
> boxed set;  similarly, to "bottle" water.

....

> Did we discuss this construction here some time ago?


I could have sworn that we'd discussed 'ice tea' and 'ice cream', but I
can't find that on the archives.  I also could've sworn that we'd discussed
(because of my recidivist/prescriptive tendencies) things like man-size
versus man-sized.  But I can't find that either.

So maybe I'm imagining things...

Lynne



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320