[Ads-l] From a headline:

[Laurence Horn]

On that constraint against plurals in the first element of compounds Geoff
mentions, there's also the claim (in Pinker and elsewhere), again citing
lexical phonology, that irregular plurals (like "women") fare better than
regular ones in these positions.  I seem to recall that one of Pinker's
minimal pairs involved "mice" vs. "rats", and while the contrast isn't as
absolute as Pinker claimed I just confirmed that there are more Google hits
for "mice repellent" than "mouse repellent", while "rats repellent" fares a
lot worse in comparison to "rat repellent".  It depends on the meaning as
well, so while "tooth decay" is more readily attested (and indeed
lexicalized) compared to "teeth decay" despite the irregularity in
morphology, "teeth whitening" does get considerably more hits than "tooth
whitening", since teeth tend to decay one at a time but get whitened en
masse.

LH

On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 12:44 PM Geoffrey Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
wrote:

> The issue of whether the first noun in a compound can be inflected has
> been researched intensively since Lexical Phonology was developed (and
> probably before that too). The constraint against plurals exists in
> American English, but notably not in British English,where phrases like
> 'jobs bill' and 'drugs campaign' are old hat.
>
> Apologies if this is garbled in some way--can't seem to stop that.
>
> Also, +1 to Mark Mandel.
>
> Geoff
>
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
> Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
> http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
>
> geoffnathan at wayne.edu
>
> Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it
> to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2020 8:32 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: From a headline:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: From a headline:
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The latest example of the hypercorrect faux plural. (I've already recorded
> the disbelief of my 2002 intro linguistics class that news anchors   had
> started saying routinely "the jobs market."  The trend s now endemic.
>
> Anyway, there's more than one woman in the band, right?  And more than one
> job on the market.
>
> (I suppose we should say, '"more than one job available," since no "job"
> can logically be "on [top of]" a [figurative] market.  Put the logic back
> in language!.)
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 5:42 AM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > "The All-_Women_ Mariachi Group"
> >
> > Shouldn't that be "the all-_woman_ mariachi group"? Or should one of the
> > wonders of my lost youth have been "Phil Spitalny and his All-_Girls_
> > Orchestra" and not "... his All-_Girl_ Orchestra"? Or is this one of
> those
> > changes like the shift of e.g. American "this, that, and the other" to
> > British "this, that and the other." Or should that be, '... and the
> > other'.?
> >
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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