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babooher
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This means so little unless you're obsessed.

Take the following sentence. The Umbrella Corporation holds a science fair every year.

I am curious to know if people think "science fair" is a compound noun or not.


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Grayson Morris
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Yes, now that someone has asked and I've thought about the question for the first time in my life, I do. Like "trade show" and "party line."

But if someone wanted to duel over it, well, I'd just agree it's a modified noun. I'll duel over "party line," though.

(Out of curiosity, why does it matter to your story?)


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Wordcaster
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I've noticed different writers handle the subject differently. For example, Cormac McCarthy tends to compound more of the noun-noun words than are typically conventional. In some cases, componding changes the meaning of the word, but maybe not as often for noun-noun combinations (e.g. I put on a wet suit vs. I put on a wetsuit).

I think it's best to err on the side of what's conventional. In your case, "science fair" is the conventional nomenclature. Otherwise you may detract the reader from what's important.


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Grayson Morris
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Oh, is this a question about using a space or a hyphen or neither? Sciencefair and science-fair are both incorrect as nouns in current (American) English usage, so science fair is all you've got.

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Pyre Dynasty
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Fair is a noun. Science is an adjective. Would it be proper to write blue-car?
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babooher
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Some compound nouns are composed of two words that are completely separate. Sometimes nouns act as adjectives. "Science fair" wades into the murky fog between the two.

It has nothing to do with a story but a discussion between me and some grammarians. As posted, it is a stupid question, but one I'd like to have an answer to anyway.


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Wordcaster
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I think in context, science is still a noun. In fact, I'm struggling to understand when it could ever be an adjective.

It's like snowman. Snow describes the kind of man it is, but snow is still a noun.

Maybe some google search would find linguistic theory about when one can join two words. Joining a subject with an event seems to result in two words:

Math class
Soccer game
Science fair
Billiards tournament

Don't know if that is a rule or just my limited brainpower (or is it brain power?).

None of those would be compounded...


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wetwilly
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The real question that you all are overlooking is, why is the Umbrella Corporation holding a science fair? Are they trying to corrupt our youth? Or recruit? I don't trust those zombie-creating S.O.B.s. (Or S's. O. B?)
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babooher
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Thank you, wetwilly! You warmed my heart.
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tchernabyelo
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Yeah, surely "science" is still a noun here - "scientific" would be the adjective, but people don't call them "scientific fairs" (though they could, grammatically).

More examples of noun-noun combinations:
Bus stop

Railway (or railroad) station

Car park (but I'm slightly less sure about "parking garage"; I'm always cautious with apparent gerunds, which can be adjectival despite technically being nouns; other examples would be "retaining wall" or "diving board", but not "running man")

cheese sandwich


Generally, the first noun specifies the nature of the second noun, which tends to be more generic. You can look at breaking them down by rephrasing them as things like "a stop for buses" or "a sandwich with cheese" or "a board for diving", which shows clearly the double noun pattern. So a science fair is "a fair for science" (or "a fair about science").

Thats my interpretation, anyway.


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Robert Nowall
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Science fair...spelling bee...space heater...does the modifier have any meaning at all, or does the noun?
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Grayson Morris
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You can have a science fair, and a county fair, and a maiden fair...well, that last one doesn't use fair as a noun. (You know, a maiden fair, with hair of gold....)

So you could argue that science imparts meaning to the noun compound, as a flavor to the main component, the fair itself.


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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science fiction
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Robert Nowall
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My spell-checker busts me about "spaceport"...if I'm writing it in science fiction, I'm thinking I should just maybe say "port," and qualify "seaport." (Though "airport" has persisted.)

Kinda like "cell phone," which is losing it's "cell" of late...


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Pyre Dynasty
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Seaports are still seaports, they just aren't called that commonly. I think spaceport works just as well as airport. (Space heater joke notwithstanding.)

Science is both noun and adjective at the same time. Just as state is in state fair. What kind of fair is it? A science one. Science is modifying fair. One can say, "I'm going to a fair," and still mean a science fair. One can't say (unless it's funny) "I'm going to a science." The two nouns are not equal.

Now let's take cat-dog, they aren't inseperable, they modify each other and create a new entity. (Science fair is a kind of fair, cat isn't a kind of dog.) You can't say, "pet my cat," and mean a cat-dog. I think the hyphen should only be used in these cases.

Now I'm going to say something that you may have to think about. Adjectives are nouns. Every last one of them. They are nouns that lend their essence to another noun.


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babooher
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Not all adjectives are nouns. Take the word "big" as in "My big mouth can't shut up." "Big" is not a noun unless you use it as slang like Big Brothers and Big Sisters does (the adult is the big and the child is the little).

As for the cat-dog thing, I think the overall idea would work even on nonhyphenated, separate compound nouns.


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Pyre Dynasty
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Wow, I really need to refrain from posting when I'm that tired. I was a raving lunatic.
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philocinemas
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In your example science fair is a compound noun to answer your question. However, being a compound noun does not necessitate the use of a hyphen or combining words. There is no steadfast rule for how these words are separated/combined; unfortunately, you just have to memorize them or rely on the squiggly green and red lines that MS Word provides, but they also are sometimes wrong.

There is a difference between Part of Speech and function. I am sorry to argue but "science" is not an adjective; it is still a noun that functions in this sentence as a noun modifyer, which can be a noun, adjective, article, verb, or several types of clauses or phrases.


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Reziac
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I'm reminded of an old example, which I can't find offhand, showing how certain cuss words can be used as any part of speech.


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Grayson Morris
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Rezlac - undoubtedly an example from George Carlin, in which case I think we all know which cuss word was involved. ;-)
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tchernabyelo
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In Yorkshire, "Chuffing chuff the chuffing chuffer!" is a perfectly valid sentence *chuff being a mild swear-word in the local dialect).
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Reziac
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I dunno if it was Carlin or not; I first saw it as an old mimeo back in 1978, being passed around my sister's college class. I suspect it predates Carlin rather considerably.

I did find part of it (cuss warning) here:
http://archives.hwg.org/hwg-graphics/Pine.BSF.3.96.980707043056.14052K-100000@kens.com
The parts about using it as a preposition and a conjunction are missing from this version.

Which also lead me to this nicely exampled grammar site:
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/partsp.html


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Grayson Morris
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Well, at least I was right about the curse word involved.
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genevive42
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With Carlin, it could be any of seven, or more, cuss words. Actually, the version of his Seven Dirty Words that goes into the most detail about 'two-way' words, is on his album Class Clown. I've seen videos of the same routine that didn't have the 'two-way' words.

Cleaned Example: "You can prick your finger, but you can't..."

If you like Carlin, Class Clown is a worthy purchase.


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Grayson Morris
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True, there were several he bandied about, yet there's one that I always associate with him.
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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Ahem!
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genevive42
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Not a Carlin fan Kathleen? Or too much of one?
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Robert Nowall
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Along these lines, but clean...

"John pitched the pitch-covered ball as intently as though he were fighting a pitched battle, while Mary, singing in a high-pitched voice, pitched a tent."


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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I won't say either way about Carlin, genevive42, but I do think the discussion was threatening to move off-topic.

Thank you, Robert Nowall.


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babooher
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Philocinemas, I tend to think that function in a sentence determines what part of speech something is. You used the words "red" and "green" in your post as adjectives. They are also the colors of Christmas. Colors are things, and things are nouns. Is the word "silver" in a "silver ring" an adjective or a noun modifier? "Silver" is a noun but it is also an adjective.

Or are we mixing terms? I was always taught that a noun modifier is indeed a noun (although I've never seen noun modifiers be anything but nouns modifying another noun). While "science" in "science fair" definitely fits the bill for a noun modifier (the fair isn't science but the big fair is big), why should it just be considered part of a compound noun instead of a noun modifier?

And speaking of parts of speech being different from function, where is the definition of a noun that shows them as being modifiers? Modifiers tend to come in two flavors: adjective and adverb. Noun modifiers sound like somebody muddled up the difference between adjectives and nouns. This whole concept of language and communication is crashing down around my ears!

Screw it. I'm learning Esperanto.


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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One of the many crazy things about English is that you can take a word and change which part of speech it is. Nouns can be made into adjectives (modifiers) without necessarily doing anything to them, though other parts of speech can be made into different parts of speech by changing the spelling in one way or another.

One of the most common changes seen these days is referred to as verbifying nouns (as in "I googled the subject to learn more about it" or "We had to be quiet, so we texted each other.")



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tchernabyelo
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quote:
Philocinemas, I tend to think that function in a sentence determines what part of speech something is. You used the words "red" and "green" in your post as adjectives. They are also the colors of Christmas. Colors are things, and things are nouns. Is the word "silver" in a "silver ring" an adjective or a noun modifier? "Silver" is a noun but it is also an adjective.

"Colours are things" - well, not really. Can you actually have a "red"? Sure, some colour words can be nouns - e.g. a green (as on a golf course), but the colour itself is an adjective, a descriptor. In your example - silver is a noun when it refers to the metal, but not when it refers to the colour; a "silver ring" can therefore be either a noun-noun combination, if it is actually made of silver, or an adjective-noun combination, if it is merely a ring that has a silver colour (the latter meaning would be unusual, perhaps: but you might, for instance, describe a car as "silver", and no-one would think you actually meant the car was made of silver).


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Natej11
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If colors aren't things then does that mean Sesame Street is being sponsored by adjectives? How is that even possible?

I call shenanigans.


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Pyre Dynasty
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Can you actually have a 'science'? Concepts are things as well.
Light is both a wave and a particle. Color is light. The concept of a color is a thing. "Red is easier to see." The word orange can mean either the orange light that bounces off a certain citrus fruit and that citrus fruit.

"Now, science children! put on your science goggles and your science gloves and turn on your science tesla coils. It's time to do some science!"

To me a noun modifier is a noun being used as an adjective, that makes it an adjective. Just as using an article as a noun makes The a noun. (The is the first name of one of my characters. Yes, it did drive The to a life of villainy.) Function is form.


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Wordcaster
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Wow, this thread has delved deep into Grammarland. Beware, the event horizon is near, where friends and loved ones are lost forever.

Whether or not a noun premodifier or attributive noun is truly an adjective or only behaving as one is a semantic argument for grammarians over a glass of scotch in the corner booth of a seedy bar.

I recently found myself in the middle of a heated debate of editors wincing at writers omitting the oxford comma. Later that day, I read a develish short story about a temp worker filling in for Satan while he attended to personal business. It had a few typos in it -- and I must admit -- I found my time better spent reading that tale than discussing tomatoes vs to-mah-toes.

I guess grammar, like politics and religion, is the subject of irreconcilable differences and passionate discussions.


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philocinemas
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quote:
Philocinemas, I tend to think that function in a sentence determines what part of speech something is.

Let me address your question this way - look up the word science in your dictionary. I challenge you to find it designated as anything other than a noun. A noun is a person, place, thing, or concept/idea.

You can say:
A science is a type of knowledge. (OR) The science was very sound.

But you cannot say:
A go is fun. (Unless you are referring to a Japanese game - Belinda Carlisle would require two Go's)

The word science is always a noun, no matter how you slice it, unless you add a suffix of some kind. Many words can be other parts of speech depending on how they are used in a sentence (their function), but words that start as nouns tend to be less versatile. In this case, science functions as a modifyer to tell you what kind of fair similarly to how book can tell you what kind of store. However, science is no less of a noun than book is. The words science fair are two nouns that describe one thing. That is why it is a compound noun.

And yes, you can say "a red":
I was coloring with my son and he asked me to hand him a red.

However, if you were talking about the red store, then red functions as an adjective. The function can change the part of speech in which the word is used, if the word can be another part of speech - red can be a noun or an adjective. Otherwise, the word serves a certain function within the sentence while still retaining its designated part of speech. The word science in this case is referred to as a noun modifyer even though it is a noun.

Example:
Our book store is big.
- Our is a pronoun that also functions as a noun modifyer
- book is a noun that functions as a noun modifyer
- store is a noun that functions as the subject
- is is a linking verb
- big is an adjective that also modifies the subject

One way of viewing the difference between function and part of speech is to compare subject to noun, which are not always the same.


Edited due to the word brick being an noun or an adjective.

[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited July 06, 2011).]


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DavidS
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quote:
But you cannot say:
A go is fun.

Now it's my go.

Not having a go at you, but I think you'll find go can be a noun.

Edit: Originally a reply to philocinemas' post that was edited before I replied.

[This message has been edited by DavidS (edited July 06, 2011).]

[This message has been edited by DavidS (edited July 06, 2011).]


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philocinemas
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All right, I concede that go can be a noun in that instance - I missed it in the hundred definitions there were for go. However, there are countless verbs that cannot be used as a noun unless you change their endings.
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philocinemas
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Sorry, book store is actually one word bookstore.
Let me use a different example:

My tennis ball is yellow.

However, my basketball is orange.

There is no good reason why tennis ball is two words and basketball is one word. Both of these are compound nouns with another noun modifying the word ball. The only difference is how we do or don't combine them.


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Grayson Morris
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Besides, "A go is fun" is perfectly good English over at Engrish.com. :-)
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