Trinonyms [Archive] - Physics Forums

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 11:23 AM

Sweet! I'm gonna try to find more. :biggrin:

I bet there are more too. Words are always being compounded and shortened. Meanings shift. The words that get joined together are usually already related to each other in some way (that's why they get put together). Imagine this scenario (which I am completely making up): some flubs are gub, so gub flub becomes a unit that means something different than what the words mean separately, as blackbird or black bear. People shorten gub flub to just gub. Flub already referred to flubs, and now gub flub and gub do so too. This seems common enough to me, especially if gub was added as an adjective or verb and isn't already being used as a noun (its only meaning as a noun would be to refer to a gub flub -- it wouldn't have to 'compete' with any other nouns gub. This might be what happened in English with, for example, black or blacks, as used as a noun to refer to people with a certain range of skin colors, national origin, or whatever the classification was based on. I'm not sure if it was clipped from black people or not though. I'm almost certain this is what happened with my example below, sabretoothed tiger (actually, (ack! it keeps getting more complex!) see, sabretoothed is an adjective that could have been formed in different ways, some of which don't include a step with the noun sabretooth, which might not have been a word until AFTER sabretoothed tiger was clipped to sabretooth. THEN sabretooth was compounded (or compounded again, in a way) with tiger to form sabretooth tiger. Or people could have dropped the -ed for other reasons. Bah, I will have to look into this one -- the history of the word is probably attested, so it's a good chance to test predictions. Sweetness). You just need to get flub to take on the more specific meaning, gub flub, without adding any morphemes (words or parts of words) to it; this can be accomplished by flub being used in a narrower context or by its other meanings dying or becoming less common.

It could happen in other ways, of course. That's just one option. Bathtub, for example, was probably bathing tub (bathing being formed from the verb bathe). So it's not necessarily so straightforward either. And they don't have to be compounds either. Telephone, from below, isn't a compound. They don't even need to be [word]-noun compounds, though that type is, AFAIK, the most common. Taperecord was meant as a verb, yes? (I've never head taperecord used as a noun.)

Ack, don't post interesting stuff! I'm supposed to be doing homework! :grumpy: :tongue2:

Oh, saber is more common than sabre, it seems (if anyone else is looking (yeah, right)).

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 11:49 AM

Okay, here's a kinda cheating one, but it's just an example: Sabretooth tiger. I don't know how common sabretooth tiger is; sabretoothed tiger might be more common (the spelling isn't important -- there is no word boundary where the empty space or hyphen would go). But as a separate word, I've seen sabretooth (meaning that kind of tiger).

I don't know what this one is, but I think it's cute. Some people pronounce the first part of telephone as I have heard British English speakers pronounce telly. I know telephone has been clipped (the process of dropping part of a word to get a new word is called clipping) to phone. Telly usually refers to a television, but I will try to find out if some speakers use it to refer to telephones. Television has given us tv, tv set, and set (in some contexts).

Someone might have already studied this kind of process and have a big list. In English compounds (words formed by concatenating two or more other words), the last word is (usually) the head, or they are head-final. (This is a scientific observation, by the way, not a prescribed rule.) So a fairytale is a type of tale, a birdhouse is a type of house, a blackbird is a type of bird, and so on. The comound's complement(s) (the word(s) other than the head) are already legal words in the language, so if their meaning changes after the compound is formed, the complements are ripe for clipping. :smile:

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 12:41 PM

I wouldn't call Bath, Tub and Bathtub synonyms to be honest. Not all tubs are bathtubs, so are tub and bathtub really synonyms? Bathtub is an element of the set "tubs", so they are related, but not equivalent.
I understand that the definition of synonym, from the dictionary is:
"A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language. "
I disagree with that nearly, because by that approach then "primate" and "human" would be synonym, and that doesn't sound right. Anyone agree or is my thinking wrong on this matter?I see what you're saying, but words, or rather word forms, can have more than one meaning. Tub can mean any kind of tub or specifically a bathtub. One meaning of tub is equivalent to one meaning of bath is equivalent to one meaning of bathtub. This is why my sabretooth tiger one isn't a real one; people don't use tiger to mean specifically a sabretooth tiger.

AKG

Mar22-06, 01:52 PM

There are definitely more, since I thought of one last night, but now I've forgotten it. Here's one, although I don't think it's the one I thought of last night: "billy goat". I don't know if this one is so good, since 'goat' itself doesn't really specify that it's male. I'll see if I can remember the one I thought of.

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 02:54 PM

I think relatively modern inventions/discoveries or specialized concepts that became common would be a good place to look. Compounds are an obvious choice when coming up with names for those things, and I imagine the words used would tend to be specialized in the first place, so there isn't that 'competition' thing to stop people from clipping the word. For example, most people don't use vacuum as it is used in physics, so vacuum cleaner can be clipped to just vacuum.

Of course, it also works the other way: since the context is narrower, the extra words aren't necessary. For example, astronomers at work can just say scope to refer to a telescope.

It can also happen that most people just don't know the difference between the more specilaized words, so people use them synonymously. For example, jet, plane, and jet plane might be used this way. I don't even know if they have a more specialized meaning. I think I associate jet with a special 'look' and speed (fast). I don't really use jet plane (don't need it) -- except when singing Leaving On A Jet Plane. :smile:

I think the main thing to realize is that the usual reason that speakers form a new word is that they think their old words can't do the job in the given context. In the case of compounds, the complement usually narrows the head's meaning or referents, i.e., as when you say first base to refer to only one of the three bases in baseball. The category of the compound will be the same as the category of the head, but can differ from the complement's category. In that case, you can make a new word that has the meaning and category of the compound but the word form of the compound's complement. For example, in baseball, you can use first as a noun to refer to first base.

Now, English doesn't use inflection much, so switching categories without changing the word form might usually be possible. However, I don't know how well this would work in languages that are highly-inflected. It might happen that you can't usually change the category without having to change the word form as well.

Anywho, if you want the word form of the head to take on the meaning of the compound, since the head was not specific enough in the original context to do the job of the compound, either the context needs to be changed enough to narrow, in the right way, the meaning of the head or the head's meaning in the original context needs to be narrowed enough in some way that doesn't change the head's word form. The only way that I know to do that is for its other meanings to die off and not be replaced, which I don't think is very quick or easy. I think this is going to be the rarer thing, the head and compound having the same meaning.

Math Is Hard

Mar22-06, 03:09 PM

I got excited for a moment about zigzag -- close but no cigar. :frown:

AKG

Mar22-06, 03:15 PM

I don't think vacuum cleaner works, since people don't normally use "cleaner" to refer to "vacuum cleaner." How about "back end"?

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 04:33 PM

I don't think vacuum cleaner works, since people don't normally use "cleaner" to refer to "vacuum cleaner." How about "back end"?Right, I was just giving it as an example of the process I was talking about.

Feel free to let me know how often the head (the last word in the compound) being too general ends up being a deal breaker. :smile:

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 05:40 PM

There might be a few with radio. I think radio receiver is one in wide use. Radio transmitter or radio transceiver might also be in narrower (but not too narrow) contexts.

Math Is Hard

Mar22-06, 06:40 PM

trolleycar?

zoobyshoe

Mar22-06, 06:59 PM

trolleycar?
Choochootrain.

TheStatutoryApe

Mar22-06, 07:50 PM

Choochootrain.
Oooo... Good one. I've been trying to come up with some and haven't thought of any myself yet.

zoobyshoe

Mar22-06, 08:14 PM

Oooo... Good one. I've been trying to come up with some and haven't thought of any myself yet.
And, I just realized, in addition to kittycat there's pussycat.

zoobyshoe

Mar22-06, 08:23 PM

The adjective barenaked.

http://www.bnlmusic.com/

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 11:31 PM

streamflow? I say streamflow all the time. :redface: electric current, stairstep(s), sunlight (as in She opened the curtains to let in the sun), sunrays (catch some rays at the beach), market square, paycheck?

Better rules would make this easier. For example, how common (in terms of the number/percentage of speakers) do you guys want the usages to be? There are more that are produced by narrowing and broadening the contexts, but to keep the usages rather common, I have to limit the contexts to common ones (e.g., in a home, around town).

Metonymy (and synecdoche, if you make a distinction) might also produce trinonyms. Gah, I just had one, but I lost it when I looked up how to spell synecdoche! Curse you, synecdoche!

honestrosewater

Mar22-06, 11:41 PM

Police officer, postage stamp, remote control? I've heard people call the remote control just the control. Rain shower? Hm, and looking up rain shower, I found shower bath. That's a rather slippery one though.

I wonder why bunny rabbit and kitty cat differ from puppy dog.

Math Is Hard

Mar22-06, 11:53 PM

I like paycheck very much. I think the true test is if you can construct a sentence swapping either part of the compound word and then the word itself all smoothly and interchangeably without losing context:

I want my pay.
I want my check.
I want my paycheck.

Works! :approve:

Math Is Hard

Mar23-06, 12:05 AM

My best so far is jampack.

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 12:25 AM

Better rules would make this easier. For example, how common (in terms of the number/percentage of speakers) do you guys want the usages to be? There are more that are produced by narrowing and broadening the contexts, but to keep the usages rather common, I have to limit the contexts to common ones (e.g., in a home, around town).
Rules can easily be extrapolated from the list:

Bunnyrabbit
Ratfink
Sodapop
Taxicab
Forefront
Oleomargarine
Taperecord
Kittycat
Sumtotal

For instance, both parts have to be able to function as the same part of speech as the composite word. Tell an officer about it. Tell a police about it. Doesn't work.

"streamflow"?
No. This is your own neologism.
"electric current"
No, electric is an adjective here, current a noun. It's not two redundant nouns like "kittycat" or redundant verbs like "taperecord".
"stairstep(s)"
No. "stair" is an adjective here. "Steps" a noun.
"sunlight"
Possibly, by the same logic as "bathtub". Not all tubs can be used for bathing and not all light is from the sun, however you can mean the same thing if you say "Open the curtain and let the sun in." or "Open the curtain and let the light in."
"sunrays"
No. People mostly say "sun's rays".
market square
No.
paycheck?
Another possible "bathtub". Most "checks" imply "pay" (with the exception of gifts and prizes,) but most "pay" doesn't automatically imply a check.

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 12:30 AM

I think the true test is if you can construct a sentence swapping either part of the compound word and then the word itself all smoothly and interchangeably without losing context:

I want my pay.
I want my check.
I want my paycheck.

Works! :approve:
Whats wrong with choochootrain, pussycat, and barenaked?

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 12:44 AM

My best so far is jampack.
I was suspicious of this at first, since I'd only ever heard it used as an adjective, as in The meeting was jampacked. However, Webster's has "jam-pack" listed as a proper verb:

jam-pack
One entry found for jam-pack.
Main Entry: jam-pack
Pronunciation: 'jam-'pak
Function: transitive verb
: to pack tightly or to excess

Therefore I believe "jampack" is a completely valid trinonym (no "bathtub" iffyness about it).

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 02:00 AM

Rules can easily be extrapolated from the list:I don't assume that absence implies unacceptablity. By that argument, all trinonym compounds must be 7-13 letters long.

The only definite requirement that I took from the author's explanation was that they be three synonyms. I assumed they intended the pattern that two of them show up in the third (though it isn't clear how exactly they should show up). I thought this was just fun anyway and was asking for you guys' opinions and interests, i.e., whether anyone was interested in rarer usages (like highly-specialized terms). There might be a lot of those, and I imagine that could get boring.
For instance, both parts have to be able to function as the same part of speech as the composite word. Tell an officer about it. Tell a police about it. Doesn't work.Those are both functioning as the same part of speech: noun. One is plural and one is singular. I do see your point though. Police officers passes your test.

1) Tell the [police/officers/police officers] about it.

"streamflow"?
No. This is your own neologism.
No, it is a rather highly-specialized term: http://www.onelook.com/?w=streamflow&ls=a
It was also just a joke.
"electric current"
No, electric is an adjective here, current a noun. It's not two redundant nouns like "kittycat" or redundant verbs like "taperecord".I'm not assuming that the compound's components need to have the same category (noun, verb, etc.). I doubt the words on the list woiuld even fit that requirement. That they are on the list implies that they can be used as the same category. That doesn't mean that they were being used as the same category when the compounds were formed or even that they are being used as the same category in the compunds now. Do you have some evidence or analysis that suggests otherwise?

It seems to me that people use electric to mean electric current when they say

2) My electric was cut off.

Note that, in (2), electric is functioning as a noun.
"sunlight"
Possibly, by the same logic as "bathtub". Not all tubs can be used for bathingNot all cabs are taxis, not all totals are sums, etc. This point was already addressed: word forms can be associated with more than one meaning (which often depends on the context). If one meaning of a word form is equivalent, or nearly equivalent, to one meaning of another word form, people usually say that those words are synonyms: http://www.onelook.com/?w=synonym&ls=a

Also, I even predicted that finding heads that weren't too general would be a problem and gave a reason why that might be the case.
"sunrays"
No. People mostly say "sun's rays".Where are you getting these rules from? I can't remember the last time before seeing this thread that I said ratfink.

And how exactly do you know what people mostly say? Seriously, how much research did you do? I'd like to see your data if you have some. Sunrays is in dictionaries (many of which actually do research): http://www.onelook.com/?w=sunray&ls=a

Whether it's intentional or not, I really don't like the way that you talk to me, so I would appreciate it if you just didn't address me anymore after we can put this conversation to rest. So you aren't left in suspense, I'll probably ignore you after this. No hard feelings or whatever -- we just keep having this problem, and I can't seem to fix it, so I think it's better for everyone if we don't speak to each other until something changes. If you'd like, I won't even wish you a Happy Birthday.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 03:18 AM

light bulb?

Q: Why did you turn off the light?
A: I didn't. The bulb burnt out.

Maybe light refers more to the lamp than to the bulb? Do people say change the light or the light burnt out? I think I've heard the light burnt out before, and it makes sense to me.

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 03:35 AM

I do not consider it valid to assume that absence implies unacceptablity. By that argument, all trinonym compounds must be 7-13 letters long.
I don't know what this means: "absence implies unacceptibility."
Those are both functioning as the same part of speech: noun. One is plural and one is singular. I do see your point though. Police officers passes your test.
"Police" is a noun, yes. In the phrase "police officer" "police" functions as a "descriptor" which modifies "officer" making the type of officer specific. This is a different dynamic than the mere redundancy of bunnyrabbit or kittycat, which are the undisputed, pure forms of trinonyms. So, the question in my mind is how far, and by what logic, does "bathtub" allow us to deviate from the pure form? If we allow "police officer" then why not "executive officer"?
No, it is a technical term: http://www.onelook.com/?w=streamflow&ls=a
Your quite right. I apologize for thinking you coined the term, and I think it's an excellent example of a trinonym.
I'm not assuming that the compound's components need to have the same category (noun, verb, etc.). I doubt the words on the list woiuld even fit that requirement. That they are on the list implies that they can be used as the same category. That doesn't mean that they were being used as the same category when the compounds were formed or even that they are being used as the same category in the compunds now. Do you have some evidence or analysis that suggests otherwise?
They are all noun-noun, with the exception of "taperecord". I'm simply extrapolating from that.
It seems to me that people use electric to mean electric current when they say

2) My electric was cut off.

Note that, in (2), electric is functioning as a noun.
Yes, but in "electric current" electric is an adjective. It isn't being used there as the colloquial noun.
Not all cabs are taxis, not all totals are sums, etc. This point was already addressed: word forms can be associated with more than one meaning (which often depends on the context). If one meaning of a word form is equivalent, or nearly equivalent, with one meaning of another word form, people usually say that those words are synonyms: http://www.onelook.com/?w=synonym&ls=a
Your right about these. They are more "bathtubby" than I realized at first.
Where are you getting these rules from?
That's not a rule, it's an observation.
I can't remember the last time before seeing this thread that I said ratfink.
It's a very outdated term. It was in use when I was a young kid, but I haven't heard anyone use it in decades. "Oleomargarine" is also ancient, and no one much "taperecords" anything anymore.
And how exactly do you know what people mostly say? Seriously, how much research did you do? I'd like to see your data if you have some. Sunrays is in dictionaries (many of which actually do research): http://www.onelook.com/?w=sunray&ls=a
I listen to people talk, I read, watch tv. I have never heard anyone say "sunray". I've heard "sun's rays" quite a bit, as well as "sunbeam" but "sunray" only conjures up a brand of sunglasses. For me to say that people don't use it was probably not a proper objection to it being a trinonym, though. I think the reason it struck me as wrong is because sun and ray, while closely related, aren't broadly synonymous.
Whether it's intentional or not, I really don't like the way that you talk to me, so I would appreciate it if you just didn't address me anymore after we can put this conversation to rest. Just so you aren't left in suspense, I'll probably ignore you after this. No hard feelings or whatever -- I think it's just better for everyone if we don't speak to each other unless necessary. An early Happy Birthday!
No, an early Happy Birthday to you!

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 03:40 AM

Suffixing -ed to verbs is a way to change them to adjectives, specifically, past participles. Jam, pack, jampack can become jammed, packed, jampacked. You can also form present participles: jamming, packing, jampacking. I think participle formation is productive (you can do it in the same way to any word in the category (with a few possible exceptions)), so it sort of illustrates what I was talking about with inflection, except that, with inflection, the change is required for grammaticality.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 06:04 AM

I don't know what this means: "absence implies unacceptibility."I mean that something, a word or some property of words, not being on the list isn't a good enough reason to conclude that it was intentionally excluded from the list. There's no reason to think that the list is exhaustive (the author said those words were the only ones they had found). So being on that list of trinonyms (or one of a triple of trinonyms or whatever) is not necessarily the same as being a trinonym.

3) If a word is on the list, then i) the author became aware of the word and ii) the word was acceptable (as a trinonym).

4) If a word is not on the list, then i) the author did not become aware of the word or ii) the word was not acceptable.

(3) doesn't imply (4). (You might recognize that as the common fallacy called denying the antecedent.) And if you assume that (3) is true and that being on that list of trinonyms is not the same as being a trinonym, then you are forced to also assume that (4) is false, because if (3) and (4) were both true, then being on that list would be the same as being a trinonym.
"Police" is a noun, yes. In the phrase "police officer" "police" functions as a "descriptor" which modifies "officer" making the type of officer specific. This is a different dynamic than the mere redundancy of bunnyrabbit or kittycat, which are the undisputed, pure forms of trinonyms. So, the question in my mind is how far, and by what logic, does "bathtub" allow us to deviate from the pure form? If we allow "police officer" then why not "executive officer"?Who says those two are undisputed or pure while the others are not? They are all on the author's list -- the author is the one who came up with the definition of trinonym and is the only authority on what is or is not what they themselves want to count as a trinonym.

If you want to take it upon yourself to add the requirement that they all must be compounds and must be noun-noun, verb-verb, [x]-[x] compounds, fine, good for you. I don't want to do that. I doubt all of the words on the list would even fit that requirement. But that's just a guess -- I haven't looked at histories and I can't yet think of anything that could help determine the category of the complements.

And again, even if there were, for example, no adjective-noun compounds on the list, that alone wouldn't mean that adjective-noun compounds were unacceptable. I don't think the author intended that [x]-[x] compound requirement, and I don't want to assume it.

What makes you think that kitty was a noun when kitty cat was formed? What makes you think it is functioning as a noun in the compound? Same questions for the other words. Categories are theoretical concepts, so you have to actually present evidence and an argument. (Well, you don't have to; I mean you in the more general sense.) Actaully, let me correct that. If you are presenting those as your judgments as an English speaker, as in "in my judgment as an English speaker, that word is a noun", then great; I have no objections. But if you're presenting that as an analysis, as in "according to such-and-such theory, the compound is structured like so...", you need the evidence and arguments.

In my opinion, the only reasons given that allow you to exclude a triple of words are that i) they aren't synonyms or ii) two of them don't appear in the third.

I haven't seen that use of descriptor before, but I guess that's not such a big deal.
Your quite right. I apologize for thinking you coined the term, and I think it's an excellent example of a trinonym.Thanks, no problemo. I'm not sure whether I like it -- I'm not even sure what exactly streamflow means in the technical sense. :biggrin:
They are all noun-noun, with the exception of "taperecord". I'm simply extrapolating from that.But why do you think they are noun-noun? They can be interpreted as noun-noun now. But, hm, did you read my rambling about sabertooth? In sabertoothed tiger, the -ed on sabertoothed suggests that sabertoothed is an adjective. But in sabertooth tiger, I can't think of anything to swing the vote either way. Sabertooth could be functioning an adjective or a noun.
Your right about these. They are more "bathtubby" than I realized at first.Word forms can have more than one meaning. Cat and kitty are not synonymous in all contexts either, and neither are rabbit and bunny. Cat and bunny are sometimes used to refer to people. Kitty and bunny are sometimes used specifically for young cats and rabbits. Cat sometimes refers to any member of the family Felidae. And so on.

Q: How did you hurt yourself?
A: I slipped in the [bath/tub/bathtub].

I think the interpretation that this person slipped in some non-bathtub tub (say, crushing grapes for wine) is less common than the bathtub interpretation. In normal, everyday life, some English speakers can use tub to mean specifically bathtub, so for them, the words are synonymous. If you want to know how common that usage is, you can always check the dictionary, for starters.
That's not a rule, it's an observation.Oh, it seemed that you were using it as a reason to reject sunrays.
I listen to people talk, I read, watch tv. I have never heard anyone say "sunray". I've heard "sun's rays" quite a bit, as well as "sunbeam" but "sunray" only conjures up a brand of sunglasses. For me to say that people don't use it was probably not a proper objection to it being a trinonym, though. I think the reason it struck me as wrong is because sun and ray, while closely related, aren't broadly synonymous.Right, it might be a narrower context in which ray means specifically a sunray or ray of sunlight or whatever. I know I have heard catch some rays several times. In that phrase, it seems synonymous with sunrays.

(To see how else your version of English might differ from that of other English speakers, or just for fun, you might like this: http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html. This question cracked me up: 59.What do you call the game wherein the participants see who can throw a knife closest to the other person (or alternately, get a jackknife to stick into the ground or a piece of wood)? (http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_59.html) :uhh:)

Anywho, if I seem angry, I'm not trying to be -- in fact, I'm trying not to be. I don't know what it is exactly; maybe I read something into your comments that isn't there. It often seems to me that you are just trying to pick a fight, as opposed to, say, have a discussion, with me, and me trying to have a discussion anyway hasn't worked, so I guess I'm giving up until I have a better idea.

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 07:05 AM

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 07:30 AM

HRW, I have a theory about an unrelated matter, and it would be of interest to me to know what your speaking voice and speech patterns are like. I wonder if you could describe them to me. Hope that doesn't sound too off the wall.Sure, I could try, but I wouldn't know where to start, what kinds of properties you're looking for... like expressiveness, pitch, volume. Do you have some options, like a little questionnaire?

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 07:40 AM

Sure, I could try, but I wouldn't know where to start, what kinds of properties you're looking for... like expressiveness, pitch, volume.
Those you mentioned, yes, plus pronounciation, enunciation, fluidity (meaning do you pause alot or throw in alot of "um"s and "er"s or does it all come "trippingly off the tongue"), plus anything distinctive you think people would notice.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 02:30 PM

Those you mentioned, yes, plus pronounciation, enunciation, fluidity (meaning do you pause alot or throw in alot of "um"s and "er"s or does it all come "trippingly off the tongue"), plus anything distinctive you think people would notice.Okay, based on my own quick judgements...

My pronunciation is pretty much standard, or General, American English. I'm a rather careful, tidy speaker. I pay attention to details (I do write and study language, so I notice details). People rarely give any indication that they have trouble understanding me. I've tried to avoid getting into the habit of including fillers like um, uh, like. The range and quality of my voice seems normal for a woman. I don't have any speech impediments. I try to keep my volume at an appropriate level, be that very quiet or very loud. I take full advantage of the ability of intonation, stress, rhythm, etc. to convey meaning. My speech is generally effective and expressive, whether mellow, excited, cheerful, playful, sarcastic, sympathetic, tender, etc. You could probably easily tell from my voice what kind of mood (I want you to think that) I am in. (Though I almost never yell at people or use my voice aggressively.) My speech is probably characterized most by variety.

Is that helpful? Anything else?

zoobyshoe

Mar23-06, 04:41 PM

Okay, based on my own quick judgements...

My pronunciation is pretty much standard, or General, American English. I'm a rather careful, tidy speaker. I pay attention to details (I do write and study language, so I notice details). People rarely give any indication that they have trouble understanding me. I've tried to avoid getting into the habit of including fillers like um, uh, like. The range and quality of my voice seems normal for a woman. I don't have any speech impediments. I try to keep my volume at an appropriate level, be that very quiet or very loud. I take full advantage of the ability of intonation, stress, rhythm, etc. to convey meaning. My speech is generally effective and expressive, whether mellow, excited, cheerful, playful, sarcastic, sympathetic, tender, etc. You could probably easily tell from my voice what kind of mood (I want you to think that) I am in. (Though I almost never yell at people or use my voice aggressively.) My speech is probably characterized most by variety.

Is that helpful? Anything else?

Yes, it's helpful: a good thorough description in that I get a clear picture from it. It also, as a side note, is what I would expect from your posts.

I've become interested in the phenomenon of the gap, if any, between people's prose and their speaking voices. You must have had the experience of reading alot of someone's writing and only later hearing a recording of their voice, and being surprised that it was nothing like you expected. When I first heard Feynman's voice, for instance, I was completely shocked: he had a thick American/Yiddish intonation thing, like comedian Jackie Mason. There's the sense that he's forcing his voice down deeper than it's natural register, the consonants are kind of thick: t's have an almost d sound, and he lapsed into this rising intonation at the end of words and sentences that I've only heard in Yiddish speakers who use English as a second language. It's kind of crude and uneducated sounding. In other recordings of him I heard after that he'd dropped alot of the sing-song and settled on a more standard NY accent.

For one reason or another I tend to create strong, and apparently specific, notions of how people must sound based on their posts. I've spoken to three people I met online on the phone and only one of them was close to what I thought they'd sound like. I'm not completely sure where I'm getting these ideas of what people probably sound like, but it is no more reliable than forming a picture of what they must look like.

LeBrad

Mar23-06, 06:14 PM

How about the opposite, where the 3 words have nothing to do with each other, like shuttlecock?

Math Is Hard

Mar23-06, 06:40 PM

How about the opposite, where the 3 words have nothing to do with each other, like shuttlecock?

Neat-o! At first, I thought it should be simple - but maybe not - if all three words have to be completely unrelated.

Also, there were a few compounds I thought of yesterday that involved antonyms. Wish I had written them down now. oh, I remember, bridegroom was one.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 06:51 PM

How about the opposite, where the 3 words have nothing to do with each other, like shuttlecock?Hm, no, I think shuttlecock is a trinonym in the context of your face.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 08:17 PM

Neat-o! At first, I thought it should be simple - but maybe not - if all three words have to be completely unrelated.

Also, there were a few compounds I thought of yesterday that involved antonyms. Wish I had written them down now. oh, I remember, bridegroom was one.Be careful, MIH. Look at what happened to the last person who took one of LeBrad's suggestions seriously:
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http://xs68.xs.to/pics/06073/scary.jpg

Hah, I could marry that picture, I love it so much!

LeBrad

Mar23-06, 08:23 PM

Hm, no, I think shuttlecock is a trinonym in the context of your face.

NoseRoseToes, I'm flattered by your affection. Really, I am. But I'm afraid at this stage of my life I'm just not looking for a relationship with an internet psycho. Don't take it the wrong way, you're a nice girl, but you really have to stop hitting on me.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 08:32 PM

NoseRoseToes, I'm flattered by your affection. Really, I am. But I'm afraid at this stage of my life I'm just not looking for a relationship with an internet psycho. Don't take it the wrong way, you're a nice girl, but you really have to stop hitting on me.That's not what you said last night on the phone to your girlfriend while you were eating a ham sandwich in those SpiderMan boxers your mom got you for Christmas. Who are you calling a peeping tom anyway?!

LeBrad

Mar23-06, 08:35 PM

That's not what you said last night on the phone to your girlfriend while you were eating a ham sandwich in those SpiderMan boxers your mom got you for Christmas. Who are you calling a peeping tom anyway?!

Even though I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone last night, I had a ham sandwich for lunch today, have a Spiderman pillow, and wear Mets pajamas. Pfft, some stalker you are, you were way off.

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 08:59 PM

Even though I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone last night, I had a ham sandwich for lunch today, have a Spiderman pillow, and wear Mets pajamas. Pfft, some stalker you are, you were way off.Zebras have stripes. I know that much.

Math Is Hard

Mar23-06, 09:33 PM

You two are obviously meant for each other.

*Throws rice at HRW and LeBrad*

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 10:04 PM

You two are obviously meant for each other.

*Throws rice at HRW and LeBrad*Non, I'm just using him to get to Chomsky and, with him, World Domination. But you know what's even more surprising? Stripeless zebra baffles experts (http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3622000/3622713.stm). :surprised

Math Is Hard

Mar23-06, 11:00 PM

Non, I'm just using him to get to Chomsky and, with him, World Domination. But you know what's even more surprising? Stripeless zebra baffles experts (http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3622000/3622713.stm). :surprised
I don't buy it. Next, you'll be asking me to believe in spotless leopards.

Math Is Hard

Mar23-06, 11:29 PM

Whats wrong with choochootrain, pussycat, and barenaked?
My only problem with choochootrain is that I can't construct a sentence where I can swap all three:

I am taking the train to San Diego.
I am taking the choochootrain to San Diego.
I am taking the choochoo to San Diego.

The third one doesn't work for me, but maybe you have another sentence that works better.

"Pussycat" is perfectly valid, but I see it as a spin-off of the author's "kittycat". Yours is certainly better within the definition, since there are no age connotations associated (this is where "puppydog" fails), but I can see how the author would gingerly avoid one of the words of this construct, since he is writing for a large national syndicate.

"Barenaked" is excellent, but my only concern is that it tends to be regional in usage.

Math Is Hard

Mar23-06, 11:37 PM

p.s. I think "Jellyfish" functions as one of LeBrad's "triple non-relationals".

honestrosewater

Mar23-06, 11:50 PM

Ooh ooh! I have a triple non-relational: Brad nail.

Moonbear

Mar23-06, 11:52 PM

p.s. I think "Jellyfish" functions as one of LeBrad's "triple non-relationals".
What about carjack?

Curious3141

Mar24-06, 12:22 AM

Here's the solution, for anyone who is interested.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/phillycom_teases/14138508.htm
And here are the trinonyms:

Bunnyrabbit
Ratfink
Sodapop
Taxicab
Forefront
Oleomargarine
Taperecord
Kittycat
Sumtotal
also, I think 84 across "Getonboard" was supposed to be one, but that didn't quite work for me.

Don't forget :

Pussycat (similar to kittycat)
Moocow (remember James Joyce - I guess that makes this a real word)
Cellphone

On a related note, I've always been fascinated by another class of words where letters can be removed (while maintaining the order of the remaining letters) to give a new word with the same meaning as the old one.

E.g.
satiate, sate
rapscallion, rascal
inflammable, flammable (though this one is a bit trivial)

Any other examples ? BTW, if this concept has not been explored before, let me coin a phrase : "russian doll words". :biggrin:

zoobyshoe

Mar24-06, 12:36 AM

My only problem with choochootrain is that I can't construct a sentence where I can swap all three:

I am taking the train to San Diego.
I am taking the choochootrain to San Diego.
I am taking the choochoo to San Diego.

The third one doesn't work for me, but maybe you have another sentence that works better.
They all work if it's the era of "Ratfink" and "Oleomargarine":

"Chattanooga Choo Choo

Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?
Track twenty-nine
Boy, you can gimme a shine
I can afford
To board a Chattanooga choo choo
I've got my fare
And just a trifle to spare

You leave the Pennsylvania Station
'bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then
you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham an' eggs
in Carolina

When you hear the whistle blowin'
eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee
is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

There's gonna be
A certain party at the station
Satin and lace
I used to call "funny face"
She's gonna cry
Until I tell her that I'll never roam
So Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?
Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?"

"Pussycat" is perfectly valid, but I see it as a spin-off of the author's "kittycat". Yours is certainly better within the definition, since there are no age connotations associated (this is where "puppydog" fails), but I can see how the author would gingerly avoid one of the words of this construct, since he is writing for a large national syndicate.
"Pussycat" is certainly no "spinoff" of kittykat, but a term that used to be very common along with it as an alternate, as can be seen in Tweetybird's famous "I tot I taw a puddytat!" It came to be used less and less when the first part started to have a second slang meaning. That second slang meaning didn't become cemented till the Johnny Carson incident (Late 60's -early 70's?) when Raquel Welsh went onto the tonight show holding a cat on her lap. Johnny want over to her and asked if he could pet her pussy. No one really blinked at that, and she said "Sure". Then he said "Well, then move the cat." IIRC, the incident was cut from the show and not aired, but word of it spread fast and the slang meaning had suddenly toppled the original feline meaning.
"Barenaked" is excellent, but my only concern is that it tends to be regional in usage.
I think the group Barenaked Ladies broke it away from any regional barriers it may once have had, at least in the sense of spreading knowledge of it much more broadly, not that it's actively used by alot of people.

Curious3141

Mar24-06, 01:03 AM

Just thought of a good trinonym : tincan

Interestingly, when tin is appended to can, the "tin" part signifies the metal used. However, "tin" by itself can also mean can. So it's a valid trinonym.

Also, all trinonyms form a subset of my "russian doll words", since letters can be removed from trinonyms to leave another word that's synonymous with the original. In fact trinonyms are special cases of russian doll words, since trinonyms (by definition) can be modified in two distinct ways to give synonyms.

honestrosewater

Mar24-06, 03:34 PM

Interestingly, when tin is appended to can, the "tin" part signifies the metal used. However, "tin" by itself can also mean can. So it's a valid trinonym.Maybe I can get you to think that it is not so interesting (or at least not surprising or inexplicable or is interesting for a different reason). :smile:

For one thing, if tin meant can in tincan, why would anyone have ever formed or used tincan? It would have made just as much sense to form and use cantin, cancan, or tintin. The same thing applies to all of these other trinonyms.

But I propose that how tin came to mean (or could have come to mean) tincan is a regular, predictable process.

English compounds are of the form

[[complement][head]]

in that order, where brackets surround words. Compounding words is similar to adding or multiplying numbers. The math people here can think of compounding as a binary operation on words (it is one, by my definition). The head and complement themselves can be compounds as well:

[[[complement][head]][head]]
[[complement][[complement][head]]]
[[[[complement][head]][head]][head]]
...

So in tincan, tin is the complement and can is the head. The head determines the category and broad meaning of the compound, so the set of the compound's referents is a subset of the set of the head's referents. (A fairytale is a specific type of tale, a blackbird is a specific type of bird, first base is a specific type of base, a kittycat is at least a type of cat, as a cat is a type of cat, even if not more specific). The complement, however, can differ from the compound in both category and meaning, and by its association with the compound, the complement can take on the compound's meaning and category.

I think this basic process of the complement 'leeching' the compound's features is also happening with tincan -- the features that get leeched are just different.

(You could possibly look at it in different ways. I'm not really sure if it's a morphological (words & their parts) process or syntactic (phrases & their parts) process, say, where the head is deleted, but I'll assume you guys aren't that interested, and either way, the result is the same. Oh, I meant to correct myself before: clipping is used only for deletions based on sound analysis, not deletions based on meaning analysis. Saying sis for sister and bro for brother are instances of clipping. I'm not sure what to call this deletion of complements and heads, but its name is no great matter.)

I think what happened with tincan might be what happened with, e.g., water bottle. (And two heads are better than one anyway. :groan:) Tin and water, as nouns, are mass, or non-count, nouns, as opposed to count nouns like can and bottle. (The count/mass distinction really refers to how words can function; a word isn't, e.g., a count noun but, rather, is functioning as a count noun in a particular instance.) I won't bore y'all with the details; the basic idea is that you can count count nouns. :rolleyes: Count nouns can be pluralized (dogs), used with cardinals and many (three dogs, many dogs), and are thought of as coming in discrete units, or being quantized. Mass nouns cannot be pluralized or used with cardinals (*fogs, *three fog(s)), are used with much (much fog), and use quantizers (a patch of fog, two bottles of water, an ounce of tin).

Tincan(s) and water bottle(s) function as count nouns. And when you use tin and water to mean tincan and water bottle, tin and water, which are usually mass nouns and, more importantly, are mass nouns in their compounds, become count nouns:

5) Where did those three tins go?
6) Can we have two waters, please?

That is, the complements are leeching the count feature of the compound (and perhaps they must do so when they take on the compound's meaning).

The reason I chose water bottle is that it introduces another explanation: water could be functioning as a count noun because the head of water bottle was deleted or because the quantizer of bottle of water was deleted, as when you say waters to mean glasses/cups/servings/etc. of water. It would be interesting to look at the mass/count feature in other compounds to see if there are any rules at work there. Can mass nouns function as compound heads? I can't think of any at the moment.* Anywho... sorry, I love this stuff. :blushing:

Does that make sense? I realize it's GD and people might just not care about this stuff, but if anyone is interested and wants me to explain something, I'd be glad to try. :biggrin:

I imagine people do use tin to refer to any kind of can, but do they use tincan that way?

*(Edit: Oh, right, oleomargarine and sodapop, mass compounds with mass heads and mass complements. Ooh, but look at breakwater, which turns count -- this is a special type of compound formed by incorporation, usually a verb and one of its arguments (direct object, etc.); breakwaters break water, as scarecrows scare crows. But maybe it has nothing to do with incorporation. Water could have already been turned to a count noun by deleting its quantizer, as when you say waters to mean some bodies of water (oceans or whatever). Or, I don't know, how do people use breakwater? I haven't heard it much, but considering it as a wall, I would use it as a count noun. Okay, shutting up now.)

Math Is Hard

Mar24-06, 04:34 PM

What about carjack?
close. but the trouble is that car and jack both have relationships with carjack, so I think it's difficult to classify it as a true triple non-relational.
Now, shampoo on the other hand...:biggrin: ok, that is disqualified for not being a true compound of two words but I thought it was funny.

As for the trinonyms, I really liked tincan at first, but it seems it's not a true compound, as I can only find "tin can" in the dictionaries. Same for "cell phone".

Zoob, I had forgotten all about the Chattanooga Choochoo!

zoobyshoe

Mar24-06, 06:07 PM

Zoob, I had forgotten all about the Chattanooga Choochoo!
You're still resisting "pussycat" and "barenaked"? Here I am trying to amuse and entertain you with these word forms you seem to like, I find what I think are three good ones in a row, bam, bam, bam, and now I have to fight to get you to accept them!

"Pussycat" is perfectly valid, but I see it as a spin-off of the author's "kittycat". Yours is certainly better within the definition, since there are no age connotations associated (this is where "puppydog" fails), but I can see how the author would gingerly avoid one of the words of this construct, since he is writing for a large national syndicate.
Here's "pussy" and "pussycat" scanned from my compact OED:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b95/mrzshoe/pussycatff.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b95/mrzshoe/pussyff.jpg

(This is the 1971 edition. Of periferal interest is the lack of any vulgar meaning for "pussy". Perhaps the British have never used it this way, I don't know.The vulgar usage is defined in the 2000 Webster's.)

"Pussy" as "cat" goes back at least to 1862. "Pussycat" even further back to at least 1837.

"Kittycat", stangely, is not in the OED at all, (nor is it in the 2000 edition of Webster's Collegiate) I have.
It is in 5 more minor online dictionaries as "kitty-cat" but they give no history.

The OED has "kitty" as only refering to a kitten, and gives just one usage from 1729.

"Kittycat" may only be American, and somehow hasn't gotten into the Websters, so I think "pussycat", from at least as far back as 1837, is vindicated of being a mere spinoff of "kittycat", and is, arguably, the older and more solid of the two.

Should we reject "pussycat" for the reason that felines have already been covered by "kittycat"? It's certainly odd that there happen to be two of these rare word forms that pertain to cats, but we've been given "kittycat" by your author, and if there is any spinning-off involved here, it's much more likely "kittycat" was made on the pre-existing model of "pussycat".

Should we reject "pussycat" because half of it has come to have a vulgar meaning when used by itself? You seem concerned that the cross-word guy would be thrown into some kind of decency dilema when considering if he could bring this example up. That, if true, is a separate sort of problem I don't have to resolve. All I can say is "pussycat" fits the form you're looking for to a T.

Is "barenaked" too regional? I think "ratfink, oleomargarine", and "taperecord" have the vastly worse disadvantage of having gone completely out of use altogether. It seems to me if we forgive them that, any regionalism "barenaked" might have (what region is this from, anyway?) should be overlooked.

honestrosewater

Mar24-06, 07:02 PM

Shampoo. :biggrin:
As for the trinonyms, I really liked tincan at first, but it seems it's not a true compound, as I can only find "tin can" in the dictionaries. Same for "cell phone".If the empty space between the words is what bothers you, I don't think it should. Writing systems aren't the best reflection of a language's structure; speech (or gesture for sign languages) is much better.

I think that a good test for whether a given segment of sound, string of letters, or whatever is functioning as a single unit is to try to rearrange its parts or insert other units into it.

Say the head is a noun (the same reasoning applies to other categories). (7a) and (7b) are two possible underlying structures of the Noun Phrase (7).

7) black bear
7a) [black bear]
7b) [black [bear]]

(7a) is a NP consisting of one noun and refers to some set of bear species which may or may not be black. (7b) is a NP consisting of an adjective and a noun and refers to any bear that is black. You can insert an adjective between another adjective and a noun, but you cannot insert an adjective into the middle of a noun, so (7bi) is fine, while (7ai) is just as bad as (8ai), where big is inserted into another NP consisting of one noun, bear:

7ai) *[black big bear]
7bi) [black [big [bear]]]

8) bear
8a) [bear]
8ai) *[bebigar]

Hm, maybe that was too much explanation. It's pretty obvious to me. A big teddy bear isn't the same thing as a teddy big bear (I don't even know what a teddy big bear is).

Also, many English compounds are pronouned differently than their non-compound counterparts. The stress is placed on the first word in compounds but on the second word in the ordinary phrases:

cold cream (compound meaning a face cream) // cold cream (phrase meaning a cream that is cold)
blackbird (compound meaning a member of a certain family of birds) // black bird (phrase meaning a bird that is black)
black bear (designates several species of bear, I think) // black bear (any bear that is black)

So this is another test, though failing this test doesn't mean a phrase isn't a compound. Only passing the test tells you something.

Blackbird and black bear function in English as if they are the same type of thing, a compound. (And they are both treated as compounds by linguists.) I think the empty space in their written forms is superficial and largely (though not entirely) accidental -- it's more conventional than rule-governed. You can find plenty of variation in the way the 'same' compound is written (with a space, a hyphen, or no space).

Anywho, asking whether a big tin can is the same thing as a tin big can should help you determine whether (this one meaning of) tin can is a compound or not.

I meant to bring up the writing system thing regarding the search for russian doll words. I think it would be more efficient to try to look for some processes that would form russian doll words than to just look for russian doll words.
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration -Thomas A. Edison,

If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor -Nikola TeslaThe processes that change words take speech into account. If they take spelling into account at all, it is as an afterthought. Even if you really want the spelling to be the same, I still think looking at these process would help your search.

For example, as far as affixation, the process that formed satiate from sate, is concerned, -ible and -able are the same suffix. (And that we spell them differently is, IMO, just stupid.) I don't think you should ignore anything, but if you're going to ignore something, I would ignore spelling, not speech.

Satiate gives you a series of processes already. They mean the same because sate is a verb ending in ate:

a) choose a verb ending in ate;
b) suffix a suffix to (a) that changes its category but not its meaning;
bx) repeat (b) x times;
c) suffix -ate to (bx).

(c) changes (a)'s category back to verb without changing its meaning. So find more verbs that end in ate and do the same thing. I'm not sure yet what the middle steps were, if there even were any (I assume there is some reason for the word's redundancy).

Math Is Hard

Mar24-06, 07:42 PM

You're still resisting "pussycat" and "barenaked"? Here I am trying to amuse and entertain you with these word forms you seem to like, I find what I think are three good ones in a row, bam, bam, bam, and now I have to fight to get you to accept them!
Whoa! You're reading way too much into my response (or lack of).

Should we reject "pussycat" because half of it has come to have a vulgar meaning when used by itself? You seem concerned that the cross-word guy would be thrown into some kind of decency dilema when considering if he could bring this example up. That, if true, is a separate sort of problem I don't have to resolve. All I can say is "pussycat" fits the form you're looking for to a T.
I never said reject pussycat. I thought it was better than kittycat.

Is "barenaked" too regional? I think "ratfink, oleomargarine", and "taperecord" have the vastly worse disadvantage of having gone completely out of use altogether. It seems to me if we forgive them that, any regionalism "barenaked" might have (what region is this from, anyway?) should be overlooked.
I said I thought it was excellent but expressed my honest hesitations about it.

Zoob, you get all three. It's a hat trick! My only hold-out was choochootrain but you convinced me that choochoo and train could be synonymous.

Math Is Hard

Mar24-06, 07:52 PM

If the empty space between the words is what bothers you, I don't think it should. Writing systems aren't the best reflection of a language's structure; speech (or gesture for sign languages) is much better.

No, doesn't bother me a bit, but I think the inventor of the game might balk. My observation was that all of his trinonyms were true compound words, no separations, no hyphenation.

I wonder if the author is lurking around here, cackling with glee, enjoying the seeds of discord he's sowing at PF. I'm convinced Merl Reagle is one of Satan's minions.

Show yourself, Merl! You cad! Crosshole!:mad:

zoobyshoe

Mar24-06, 08:05 PM

I wonder if the author is lurking around here, cackling with glee, enjoying the seeds of discord he's sowing at PF. I'm convinced Merl Reagle is one of Satan's minions.

Show yourself, Merl! You cad! Crosshole!:mad:
Oh, sure!! Blame him, you spawn of the underworld!!!

http://www.artonyou.com/Evil%20Barbie%20Demon1.jpg

We know who started this thread!!!!

honestrosewater

Mar25-06, 12:05 AM

No, doesn't bother me a bit, but I think the inventor of the game might balk. My observation was that all of his trinonyms were true compound words, no separations, no hyphenation.Oh, right, they were used for a crossword. I guess empty spaces and hyphens aren't so welcome in crosswords. :frown:

Still, assuming Merl is reading (:smile:), my point was that if there is any separation, it is only in the writing system, and even then, it is largely arbitrary. There is a 'rule' that we use blank spaces to separate words. But it isn't clear what to do with compounds because, from one perspective, a compound is one word, and from another perspective, a compound is two words. Hyphenation is a compromise, but not everyone uses this or uses it consistently. That's the thing about writing systems: they don't seem to be part of the innate part of language, i.e., there are no innate writing rules as there are other innate linguistc rules. Our writing systems are derived from our speech systems. Throw in all their arbitrariness and it's oftentimes a crapshoot. But I digress/rant.

Anywho, my satiate example was quick and sloppy, so just forget it. (And that might not even be what happened to sate.) The basic idea is the same: pieces are added that end up leading back to the original meaning. One thing you might want to look for are what I'll call russian doll stem (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAStem.htm)-affix (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnAffixLinguistics.htm) pairs, or RDSAP.

The affixes that English mainly uses are prefixes and suffixes. Affixes can be defined by specifyng their form(s), the lexical category to which they affix, the lexical category that they form, and the rough meaning that they contribute (the meanings can be quite peculiar since the meaning of the resulting word is derived from the meaning of the stem). For example, -er affixes to verbs to form nouns meaning roughly a thing that [verb]s (e.g., a singer is a thing that sings, a hunter is a thing that hunts).

You want the affix of a RDSAP to have the same resulting lexical category as the stem of the RDSAP. You have some options with their meanings, which are complicated anyway. Obviously, for the more interesting ones, the meanings of the affix and stem would 'agree' in some way, but yah, I'm not sure how to be more specific than that. Boo meanings.

Anywho, the idea is that affix of the RDSAP is the last in the sequence of affixes that lead back to the meaning of the RDSAP's stem. Once you find the pair, you would look for middle steps and hopefully find several options.

Some admittedly uninteresting (you aren't likely to find people actually using them because they are so obviously redundant) but productive ones are affixes that can cancel themselves out. For example, (double) negation can do this with some meanings and doesn't change the category of the stem. So the affixes meaning roughly not [stem], un-, in-, the variants of in- (im-, il-, ir-), can give you an infinite set of RD words. For example, the set of all stems such that un-un-[stem] means [stem] is infinite (un-un-tie is enough to do that thanks to recursion, but there are probably other roots that work too).

Another uninteresting but promising idea is using stems that include a zero derivation, i.e., where the lexical category is changed without changing the form at all (to stone / a stone). Then you only need to find one affix (which is presumably easier than finding a sequence of affixes that work together). For the verb stone, you would want an affix that attached to nouns to form verbs meaning roughly to kill/bury/destroy with [noun]s. Pretend that -ate does this. Then you could affix it to the noun stone to get the verb meaning to stone, stonate -- ack! Spelling is so stupid! Lucky thing -ate has an e. It wasn't the greatest example anyway.

In addition to, or instead of, looking for stem-affix pairs, you could look for affix tuples, i.e., affixes that you can add in a certian order to get back to the meaning of the original stem. Once you find them, you can look for stems that they work on. Meaning is such a pain though.

It might be easier to find words that match a given affix's meaning rather than looking for affixes that match a given word's meaning since there are fewer affixes than words, i.e., start with affixes and then look for words. But yeah, I'll stop typing now.

JamesU

Mar25-06, 12:33 AM

Oh, sure!! Blame him, you spawn of the underworld!!!

http://www.artonyou.com/Evil%20Barbie%20Demon1.jpg

We know who started this thread!!!!
that has to be one of the funniest pics in existance

honestrosewater

Mar25-06, 03:29 AM

Oh, I found a backwards one! The complement is the one that doesn't fit: shoeshine.

I really liked gunslinger but I don't think slinger works (perhaps if we were in the Wild West. Ah, those were the good old days). You can use gun rhetorically to refer to a person. I want to find some synecdoche trinonyms.

Perhaps Merl should do a puzzle where the clues are the contexts in which those words would be trinonyms, e.g., Wild West is the clue for gunslinger. There are plenty of those. Gah, I really want gunslinger! :grumpy:

honestrosewater

Mar25-06, 04:12 AM

Greenwood? I want to find a synecdoche trinonym involving land (even land meaning the people of the land, or country) (I just know there is one somewhere). (If I could only stop giggling about Woody Woodpecker). Wood here would mean forest. I'm not sure anyone uses green as a noun to mean forest. I've seen it used for vegetation, but perhaps that's not close enough. And perhaps wood is too general here anyway.

Oh, -land as in woodland and grassland might work with something I can't think of. Farmland? Bah.

I might have a pattern for shoeshine. What do you think of lunchbreak and handshake? Warmer? The process has something to do with the heads being verbs and becoming nouns for the compounds -- I just thought of those as I was falling asleep, so I'm sleepposting now. But you see the idea: you shine shoes, shake hands, break for lunch... if the same leeching process holds for the complements, now the heads that are normally verbs don't have as much competition, so it might solve that problem. That is, the head can also leech the compound's category. It might present new problems though. Anywho, :zzz:

Sheesh, almost asleep again. I forgot to mention that in quickly looking up some stuff earlier about -ate, it seems that an English process and a Latin process might work together to make lots of RD words. Latin, which is a highly-inflected language and, from what I understand, quite regular, seems to form past participles in such a way that, long story short, English ends up having words that it borrowed from Latin whose verb and adjective forms both end in -ate. For example, animate, situate, satiate. Now, English, as I mentioned, forms its past participles by suffixing -ed to the verb. Why is that cool? The resulting adjectives have the same meaning as the adjective forms from Latin. That is, the adjectives animated, situated, satiated mean the same as the adjectives animate, situate, satiate. Sure, it's only an extra d, but this is a nice find, I think. Also, since Latin inflection is quite regular and participle formation in English is productive, it's possible that ALL of those types of words that English borrowed from Latin are RD words. Someone have a good idea for how to find a list of those words? This time for real. :zzz:

OMG, someone please shoot me so I can get some sleep. If anyone wants to read this and see if there's a way to use wildcards to turn up a non-ginormous list of words ending in ate, http://www.onelook.com/?c=faq#patterns. If not, I'll look when I awake. Lots (like at least 1/3) of English words come from Latin, so it's not exactly small potatoes. Or something. :zzz:

haldiman

Apr7-06, 07:09 PM

I'm a big fan of Merl's and also know him in passing. I dropped him a line and what he wrote is below. Barry Haldiman

i can't tell you how much i enjoyed the physicists' string on trinonyms! maybe you could pass this along to them.

i agree with them about the need for a strict definition of trinonym, and the following is what i've been telling people who write to me with their own suggestions.

"taxi cab" and "rat fink" are perfect trinonyms. the main rule i go by is that there must be a high level of "synonymic interchangeability" (or maybe "synerchangeability"?) among all three terms when used in a sentence. i used "bathtub" as my example because at the time i felt it legitimately passed this test -- "i'm gonna hop in the bath," "i'm gonna hop in the tub," "i'm gonna hop in the bathtub." admittedly, there's a bathing context to this, which is why "tub" seems to work, but i now feel it falls into a category that i =don't= allow in which the "B" word is a generic term for the "A" word.

in other words, i wouldn't allow "jet plane" or its ilk because all planes aren't jets. this also leaves out "puppy dog," since all dogs aren't puppies. but i did allow "get on board" because it passed the interchangeability test -- "to get on a bus," "to board a bus," and "to get on board a bus" all mean the same thing, and there's no generic problem.

others i've found since the puzzle came out are "shapshot" and "smash hit." i think "teeny-weeny" works too, since "weeny" by itself is a legit dictionary entry. "itsy-bitsy" i probably would not allow, though, since i've never heard anyone use the word "itsy" by itself.

i have to admit that my inclination is to be a little lenient in accepting "close call" examples, like "comic strip," even though some comics are panels.

but otherwise my goal is to try to keep a trinonym is as specific a thing as possible -- A=B=AB.

--merl

Math Is Hard

Apr8-06, 05:30 PM

Thanks for passing that along, Barry. I just about fell over when I read it. What a thrill to get Merl's feedback! :smile:

honestrosewater

Apr8-06, 06:58 PM

Here's an idea. [NOUN][ADJECTIVE] compounds, such as

ice cold
paper thin
feather light
lightning fast
rock hard
pillow soft
razor sharp
?blood red
?fire engine red
could be a good source of trinonyms, depending on what exactly you want to count as a trinonym and what you take as your corpus.

You can form them by pretending that you're completing a simile by filling in the blanks below.

... is as cold as ice.
... is as light as a feather.
... is as [ADJECTIVE] as (a(n)/the) [NOUN].
Now take out this [ADJECTIVE] and [NOUN] and invert them to form a [NOUN][ADJECTIVE] compound. The template is just to give you the idea. You're simply looking for a property (e.g., coldness) and an entity that can exemplify that property (e.g., ice).

Here's how it can give you trinonyms. In the above type of compounds, you're selecting one property of the noun's referent and using it to modify the adjective. The property of the noun's referent that gets selected is determined by the adjective accompanying the noun in the compound. So paper thin selects the thinness of the paper, razor sharp selects the sharpness of the razor, etc.

The noun seems to be acting in a way like an adverb, answering 'How [ADJECTIVE]?' or something similar (ones involving colors, for example, have been wiggling away from me so far (is the right constituent a property or entity?)). If you think the meaning of razor sharp is closer to very sharp than to sharp, just choose your noun so that the answer to 'How [ADJECTIVE]?' is 'moderately/normally/typically [ADJECTIVE]', or just plain '[ADJECTIVE]'. So now the compound and adjective have the same meaning.

The noun gets a chance to have the same meaning by being used as an adjective. Doing this will select the 'special' property or properties of the noun's referrent. You need to make it so that the property you want can be selected without needing a prompt from the adjective as before. That is, choose nouns that are 'known' for a particular property. For example, to me, the standout property of a razor is its sharpness, or its ability to cut. So when razor is used as an adjective, sharpness, or ability to cut, is the first property that I associate with it, taking razor to basically mean sharp or able to cut.

She has a razor sharp wit.
She has a sharp wit.
She has a razor wit.

If anyone wants to play with it, I think it has potential. The issues that I see are how you feel about figurative speech and, if you are basing your judgements at least partly on how often it turns up somewhere, finding nouns that don't tend to take on affixes when used as adjectives. For example, -y has already popped up for me: ice, rose, pillow have the obvious icy, rosy, pillowy option when being used as adjectives, so you might not find the noun form as often. (Oh, duh, then you have icy cold, pillowy soft, etc. :biggrin:) You can experiment some to see what helps a noun resist taking on affixes when switching to an adjective function. Hm, -like might be productive, or close to it, but it has its drawbacks, so it might not pose much of a threat.

By the bye, '"razor wit"' returned 31,000 hits on google just now. '"razor like wit" OR "razorlike wit"' returned 303.