Who cares about National Grammar Day? Or is it whom?

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Yes, I am aware that the first elements in noun compounds are not exactly adjectives. That is why I called them noun compounds. (Trademark law terms them "adjectives"--the distinction that linguists make is not very important to the general user of the term).

Given the right context, pretty much any noun can be verbed. I agree that "sake" is a tough one; after all, it rarely occurs outside the phrase "for the sake of." Without the linguistic context, the pragmatic connection is difficult to make. But this is a pragmatic problem, not a grammatical one.
------Original Message------
From: Randy Alexander
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Who cares about National Grammar Day? Or is it whom?
Sent: Mar 4, 2010 9:44 AM

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:46 PM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> The use of nouns as verbs is common in American English. That is to say, any noun can be verbed. For that matter, nouns can be adjectived (or at least made the first elements in noun compounds).

Using a noun to modify another noun does not make it an adjective, if
that's what you're referring to by "noun compounds".

However, quite a lot of nouns can be made adjectives by adding -y.

Also, I would be careful about saying *any* noun can be verbed.  Could
you verb "sake" (as in "for Pete's sake", not the drink)?

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
Blogs:
Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu <--New installment!
Chinese characters: http://www.sinoglot.com/yuwen

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