Conversion by truncation (Wa Re: No "damage"?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

But the difference is that "collateral," n., already has a well-recognized
meaning, making the truncated "collateral (damage)" seem semantically weird.

JL

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>wrote:

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> Subject:      Conversion by truncation (Wa  Re: No "damage"?)
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> From: "Arnold Zwicky" <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
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> Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 11:48 AM
> Subject: Re: No "damage"?
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> > Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: No "damage"?
> >
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> >
> > On Sep 11, 2011, at 10:59 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> >> "Possible discriminatory effects on non-speakers of Welsh are
> >> justified as acceptable collateral."
> >>
> >> Should be "collateral _damage__," right?
> >>
> >> Or maybe I've missed the point. The context is a discussion - in
> >> English, of course! - of ways and means to increase the "pro-active,"
> >> so to speak, use of Welsh among ethnic Welsh in Wales.
> >
> > we can exclude the financial sense of "collateral" here, which would make
> > this an instance of "nouning by truncation":
> >
> >  Very commonly, adjectival modifiers are converted to nouns by
> truncation,
> > with the Adj in an Adj + N phrase treated, at least historically, as a
> > noun with (roughly) the meaning of the whole phrase.
> > http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/conversion-by-truncation/
> >
> > (and mentioned in many other postings).  i have dozens of examples in my
> > files, and i haven't been systematically looking for them.  "attending"
> > for "attending physician", "viral" for "viral video" (reported on ADS-L a
> > while back), "Indian" for "Indian restaurant", and many many more.
> >
> Including "full frontal" to mean a "full frontal nudity scene":
>
> http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/from-happy-meals-to-root-canals/
> This involves truncation twice: Once to allow "full frontal" to mean
> nudity;
> another time to allow "full frontal (nudity) scene" to be shortened to
> "full
> frontal". (Other examples, some linked to other blog posts, included.)
>
> Neal
>
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