Plural adjective to avoid unintended meaning
Joel S. Berson
Berson at ATT.NET
Tue Dec 24 18:32:18 UTC 2013
At 12/24/2013 09:35 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> > The transcript at
> http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=251627762:
> "And so we had a wonderful casting, extra casting agent and also,
> you know, extras casting agent who brought us wonderful faces and
> we were able to see who we really, you know, could work with."
>
>"extra casting agent" is ambiguous, between a reading with "extra"
>as an adjective 'surplus' and "extra" as a noun referring t,o an
>actor. "extras casting agent" has the noun.
An "extras-casting agent" would not confuse or bother me.
Joel
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list