Timeline for Is "horrorest" a correct English word?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
28 events
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| Apr 16, 2015 at 21:45 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @snailboat: While I do not have access to that book right now, I suppose you are referring to statements like the ones cited here: a "noun" cannot be an "adjective" (a grammatical class) but it can be a "modifier" (a grammatical function) and Attributive nouns fail to qualify as adjectives by virtue of the grading and adverbial dependents criteria. They don't take very or too or the analytic comparative marker more as modifier.. Thank you for pointing out that work :) | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 19:11 | comment | added | user230 | @O.R.Mapper The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language explicitly says that attributive nouns aren't adjectives. You'll have trouble finding a more authoritative source. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 15:25 | comment | added | reinierpost | Some googling showed that you are correct: the term is used very sloppily. Anyhow, it is the distinction between "real" adjectives and noun adjuncts that counts here. So a reference to an explanation that makes that distinction may help. E.g. Wikipedia or ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/adjectiv/adjectiv.htm | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 14:32 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... As this is becoming off-topic here, follow up maybe to ... a separate question, some time. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 14:32 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... If you can provide a reputable reference that explicitly states that an attributive noun is not an adjective, be my guest. When I first heard that claim, I spent quite a while trying to "prove the people who told me fox etc. can be adjectives wrong", and all I could find was overwhelming evidence that the definition of "adjective" in English is extremely blurry and very much dependent on who you ask (in particular, on whether parts of speech are seen as an inherent property of words, or rather as something determined by whichever function a word currently has in a sentence). ... | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 14:30 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @reinierpost: I'd fully agree, and yet, some American highschools seem to firmly disagree with that, and teach that the identifying questions are simply: "What kind of a car is this? - A blue car. - What kind of a trap is this? - A fox trap." This interpretation seems to be reflected by definitions such as "Nouns used in this way are sometimes said to be adjectives", or "What Is An Adjective? (...) Whose? (Caroline's, his, its, John's)". ... | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 14:04 | history | edited | DJMcMayhem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 633 characters in body
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| Apr 16, 2015 at 11:18 | comment | added | reinierpost | And "fox" is not a kind of trap. You can't answer "What kind of trap is this?" with "Fox." or "It is fox." | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 11:17 | comment | added | reinierpost | Please remove the phrase "Yes, horror can be an adjective." An attributive noun is not an adjective. We cannot say "the horrorest movie", "a very horror movie" precisely because of this difference. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 10:07 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... In that latter interpretation (which matches what others call a "noun adjunct"), fox and mouse can be adjectives simply because they are answers to the questions What kind of a trap is a fox trap? / What kind of a trap is a mouse trap? | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 10:06 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @sumelic: In English, there seem to be two different interpretations of what constitutes an adjective (possibly due to a low degree of inflection for adjectives, which in various other languages make it inherently clear what is or is not an adjective?). One such interpretation (that seems to be prevalent in many other Western languages) is that an adjective is the answer to the question how, and that coincides with what you describe. The other interpretation (that American contacts of mine insist is taught in highschools there) is that an adjective is the answer to what kind of. ... | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 9:00 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | @BraddSzonye - I think you've nailed it. It looks to me like some dictionaries are labeling the noun adjunct use of horror as an adjective. It's interesting how one of the dictionaries prompting all this hoopla also reads always used before a noun. That seems like it's maybe "learner-speak" for "noun adjunct". That's also why you can say "It was a scary, frightenng film," or, "It was a frightening, scary film," but you wouldn't use a comma in "It was a scary horror film," nor could you reverse the order: "It was a horror scary film". | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 2:00 | comment | added | B. Szonye | In “horror movie,” horror is a noun adjunct. It’s a noun modifying another noun, much as adjectives do, but that isn’t the same as an adjective, and it doesn’t inflect like one. | |
| Apr 16, 2015 at 1:00 | vote | accept | Gurpreet | ||
| Apr 15, 2015 at 20:59 | comment | added | sumelic | I could say "I went to see a baseball movie" but that doesn't make "baseball" an adjective, just an attributive noun. | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 20:57 | comment | added | sumelic | I don't see why "horror" would be considered an adjective in "horror movie". It cannot be used predicatively (*That movie was horror) or comparatively (It was a horrorer movie than the previous one we saw). What reason is there for thinking of it as an adjective rather than as a modifying noun? | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 19:16 | comment | added | DCShannon | @Pharap All of your example sentences sound completely fine. | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 18:44 | comment | added | Pharap | "Hey, could you recommend some good horror for me? " I would dispute this use, it sounds awkward. Horror as a noun is a genre, therefore this sentence is like asking "Hey, could you recommend some good fantasy for me?" or "Hey, could you recommend some good romance for me?". Maybe it's ok as a colloquialism in some areas but it sounds incorrect to me. | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 18:03 | comment | added | Khan | @DJMcMayhem, According to The Free Dictionary, horror is an adj in "a horror movie". | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 17:09 | comment | added | DJMcMayhem | Does anyone know how to link to a second definition on Merriam-Websters online? I would like to add some to my answer, but I don't know how to link one of the answers. | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 17:08 | history | edited | DJMcMayhem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added additional explanation.
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| Apr 15, 2015 at 16:58 | comment | added | DJMcMayhem | Merriam Websters says it's both. | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 16:54 | comment | added | Gurpreet | Horror is definitely an adjective according to CollinsCobuild dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Dictionary. What do you have to say about this? | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 15:38 | comment | added | ColleenV | ...and don't forget horrifying! There are many synonyms, but I think the progression the OP is looking for might be scary, scarier, and scariest. That movie was scarier than the scary movie we saw last week, but it wasn't the scariest movie I've ever seen. Also, +1 for explaining compound noun. | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 15:22 | history | edited | DJMcMayhem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 22 characters in body
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| Apr 15, 2015 at 15:19 | comment | added | DJMcMayhem | @sgroves ooh, good one! | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 15:18 | comment | added | user428517 | also horrific ! | |
| Apr 15, 2015 at 15:17 | history | answered | DJMcMayhem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |