The phrase higher-priced products is very common, but isn’t it grammatically incorrect? The adjective higher is being forced to servce as an adverb here, so the phrase should instead be more highly priced. What’s the verdict? Answer Both are correct with long-established usage. You can say “more highly” if you like, but according to dictionary.com: adverb, … Read more
I have ambiguity with the meaning of some compound nouns, especially in the form noun+noun like: "The Pirate King", "The Lion King", "The Pirate Bay" and so on. EDITED: to put it in context: Consider this famous movie title: "The Lion King", is it literally another structure of "The King of Lions", meaning are they … Read more
I have seen the compound words “en dash” and “em dash” sometimes appear with a hyphen (“en-dash”) and sometimes without. Are both the hyphenated and the unhyphenated forms correct? Answer There is no unanimity on the proper form of this term—at least not among U.S. authorities. Merriam-Webster’s Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) doesn’t include entries for … Read more
If I have two words – let’s say “lamp” and “vampire” and I put all of their letters together to form a new fantasy word. e.g. “vapamlimper” does this process have a name? I already considered terms like portmanteau or blend word but they don’t quite hit the spot. This is also not a pure … Read more
“‘s” indicates possesive case. Although it’s absurd to say that “today” owns “weather”, possesive case can indicate other relationships too. For example, in “Picasso’s paintings” it means “by Picasso” and in “children’s stories” it means “for children”. So “today’s weather” can be interpreted as “weather for today”. So all is good. BUT there’s another seemingly … Read more
A friend made a typo when writing “bee sting” and wrote “beesting” but apparently this is also a word according to Merriam-Webster. Does anyone actually use “beesting” if so, is it a result of some sort of localisation? Answer Bee sting, beesting and bee-sting all work. But generally, beesting is not used because when you … Read more
When referring to a restaurant specializing in fish and chips would you call it a fish and chip shop or a fish and chips shop? Answer "Attributive nouns" or the first elements of compound nouns tend to be singular in form There is no absolute rule forbidding the use of a plural noun in the … Read more
Consider the following sentence as an example. I used some hair spray. What part of speech is hair? Intuitively, I want to say it’s an adjective modifying spray since hair spray is two separate words and not a compound noun. Hair spray however, as paired nouns, is something that we’ve decided to call a thing … Read more
Consider the following situation: A & B are having a conversation. C overhears it. Either A or B says something C considers controversial. C later speaks about this in private, but has misheard. Is there a single compound word that would cover this situation? I am thinking either ‘overmisheard’ or ‘misoverheard’: “I’m sorry, I seem … Read more
I hope this is the right place to ask this, if not please give a feedback. According to the Wikipedia, the term gerontology is made up from two parts, geron and -logia, which mean respectively “old man” and “study of” in Greek. I was looking for a hint, why the term has an extra -t. … Read more
