do good (was: prescriptivism, etc)

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Thursday, February 1, 2001 10:16 am -0800 James Smith
<jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Hey, this helps me understand why my mother-in-law
> uses 'bath' as a verb, the only person I've ever heard
> use 'to bath' instead of 'to bathe' for washing in a
> bathtub.  But it does make sense: it isn't a
> 'bathetub', is it?
>

It's not a 'bathetub' because it's a noun-noun compound, not a verb-noun
compound, which would be much less Englishy.

Lynne



M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

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