Favorite crossword author, Merl Reagle

[zoobyshoe]

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]

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 bathing

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, 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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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: http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_59.html )

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]

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.

 

[honestrosewater]

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]

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 a lot or throw in a lot of "um"s and "er"s or does it all come "trippingly off the tongue"), plus anything distinctive you think people would notice.

 

[honestrosewater]

Those you mentioned, yes, plus pronounciation, enunciation, fluidity (meaning do you pause a lot or throw in a lot 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]

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 a lot 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 a lot 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]

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

 

[Math Is Hard]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

You two are obviously meant for each other.

*Throws rice at HRW and LeBrad*

 

[honestrosewater]

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.

 

[Math Is Hard]

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.

I don't buy it. Next, you'll be asking me to believe in spotless leopards.

 

[Math Is Hard]

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]

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

 

[honestrosewater]

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

 

[Moonbear]

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

What about carjack?

 

[Curious3141]

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".

 

[zoobyshoe]

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 going to be
A certain party at the station
Satin and lace
I used to call "funny face"
She's going to 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 kitty. 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 a lot of people.

 

[Curious3141]

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]

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).

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. 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.

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.

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.)