[Ads-l] back-formation: to eagle-hunt

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jan 1, 2017, at 4:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> From the film, _The Eagle Huntress_ (highly recommended except for the
> theme song!):
> 
> "Girls can't eagle hunt."
> 
> Not "to hunt for eagles" but "to hunt wild game through the use of a
> trained eagle.”
> 

Like the similarly instrumental back-formed compound “fly(-)fish”, as in

“Real men don’t fly-fish”
http://www.ovictormiller.com/Real%20Men%20Don't%20Flyfish.htm

or “Ten things I wish I knew when learning to fly fish"
http://theflyfishingbasics.com/10-things-i-wish-i-knew-when-learning-to-fly-fish/

—not “to fish for flies”, which presumably real men also don’t do.

LH
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org