Timeline for Word Order: "the village crazy lady" vs. "the crazy village lady"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
3 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 24, 2017 at 6:22 | comment | added | Joe Pinsonault | It wouldn't be wrong in a grammatical sense, but it wouldn't convey the same meaning, although it's practically the same thing. When you say "the village crazy lady", you're essentially saying "The village's crazy lady". Like the "village idiot" is the "village's idiot". It implies that there's only one person who occupies this position. When you say "the crazy village lady", the information you're expressing is that there is a crazy lady and she's from a village. Is she still in a village? I'm not sure. All I can say is that she's a village lady who's also crazy. | |
| Jan 24, 2017 at 4:01 | comment | added | JK2 | So would it be wrong to say "the crazy village lady"? | |
| Jan 24, 2017 at 3:51 | history | answered | mike | CC BY-SA 3.0 |