"croissant" as a zero plural

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 10, 2006, at 2:22 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

>> david denison writes to inquire about bill poser's use of "croissant"
>> in his latest Language Log posting: ....
>
> *One* possibility is that "croissant" is viewed as an adjective or
> attributive. "Croissant" means "crescent", and refers more-or-less
> to what
> is/was conventionally called a crescent roll, so it would not be
> unreasonable (whether 'correct' or not) to take "croissant" as
> short for
> "croissant roll" or equivalent.

i think that "crescent" in "crescent roll" is still a noun, referring
to the shape.  that is, "crescent roll" is a noun-noun compound (with
the characteristic forestress of such compounds).

the OED has "crescent", referring to the roll of bread, from 1886,
and "crescent roll" from 1899.  it has no cites of "croissant roll",
though you can google up a few hundred hits (compared to tens of
thousands for "crescent roll").

it would be hard to say whether "crescent"  is a short form of
"crescent roll", or whether "crescent roll" is an expansion of
"crescent".  for "croissant", it looks pretty clear that "croissant
roll" is, historically, an expansion (fostered by "crescent roll"),
though some people might now be viewing things the other way.

> ... For comparison: "Danish" is perceived as short for "Danish
> pastry", which I
> believe is why it often has a zero plural, e.g., "Try these cheese
> Danish!"
> ... which I suppose I _would_ prefer to "Try these cheese Danishes!".

well, "Danish" is, historically, a shortening of "Danish pastry".
and "Danish" is in fact, an adjective here (and the combination has
the characteristic afterstress of adjective + noun combinations).

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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