-like

[Neal Whitman]

Actually, I agree with you that the fix involving possessives is no good.
Ridiculous, in fact, which is why I proposed it in an April Fool's Day post.
However, the observation that you and I (independently) made that inspired
the post still stands.

Neal

----- Original Message -----
From: "victor steinbok" <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: -like


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: -like
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Original message went to the junk pile, so I could not respond to it right
> away.
>
> Interesting. Thanks for the tip.
>
> Please forgive the amateur analysis, but I don't think possessive
> would save the case here. In fact, I am not even sure I would accept
> possessive in any of these cases in my own speech. It sounds more than
> a bit awkward to me, even "human's-like feet" (actually, I would
> probably tag it as "*", but may accept "?"). Come to think of it,
> "human-like feet" sounds to me a lot better than "watermelon-like
> seeds". But that has more to do with the fact that "human" here /is/
> an adjective, not a noun. One of the other examples, "turtle-like
> beak" sounds as bad as the watermelon one.
>
> But all the "bad" examples can be solved by a simple restatement. Why
> does "it has a beak like a turtle" work and "it has a turtle-like
> beak" does not? The meaning is the same, but syntax is completely
> different. And, in fact, the transformation would not work here at
> all:

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