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

[Laurence Horn]

Maybe so, but that didn't stop "privates" from ending up with two rather different meanings as a truncated convert.  Presumably context will disambiguate here, as they would be with "All the privates were on display".

LH

On Sep 13, 2011, at 8:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> 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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>> Poster:       Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
>> Subject:      Conversion by truncation (Wa  Re: No "damage"?)
>>
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>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Arnold Zwicky" <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> 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"?
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> 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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>
>
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