[lit-ideas] Re: Words.2
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 20:56:15 -0800
Stan Spiegel wrote:
Isn't (aren't) two words joined, after all, one word? (For example
thirty-first.)
I absolutely hate it when people raise questions about what is a word,
really. 'The word "smoke" is both a noun and a verb.' (measure/measure,
etc.) This is somewhat, but not exactly, like the commonsense view that
the name 'John' is the same name, whether 'Smith' or 'Brown' is appended
to it. 'John' can have multiple denotations but only one sense (if
proper names have senses).
In 'thirty-first' we have two words joined to make a third, with a new
meaning, an ordinal derived from a count word and an ordinal. But still,
it is a new word which isn't synonymous with either of the
hyphen-separated words. So, Stan wins (and Steve wins). Maybe.
Robert Paul
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