NOUN(s) NOUN
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The discussion of Boxer(')(s)(') Trail ("Signs and wonders", 6/12/2021 ) brought up the question of plural forms in English nouns in structures like mouse trap, activities center, and iron bar, which has been much discussed in the linguistic and psycholinguistic literature — and also here on Language Log.
Without further commentary, here are some of the highlights:
"Postcard from Vegas, 3: Regularly-inflected plurals exclusion? I don't think so", 12/1/2003
"Activities Centers in Paradise and Santa Cruz", 12/1/2003
"The rigors of fieldwork trips", 12/1/2003
"English grammar quiz", 9/20/2011
"Complaint(s) Department", 12/6/2011
And for more than you probably want to read about the topic, see Mark Liberman and Richard Sproat, "The stress and structure of complex nominals in English", 1992.
Update — according to the USGS:
U.S. BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES (BGN)
1. I have heard that the use of the apostrophe "s", such as Pike's Peak to show possession is not allowed in geographic names, so why are there many such entries in the GNIS database?
Since its inception in 1890, the BGN has discouraged the use of the possessive form—the genitive apostrophe and the “s”. The possessive form using an “s” is allowed, but the apostrophe is almost always removed. The BGN's archives contain no indication of the reason for this policy.
However, there are many names in the GNIS database that do carry the genitive apostrophe, because the BGN chooses not to apply its policies to some types of features. Although the legal authority of the BGN includes all named entities except Federal Buildings, certain categories—broadly determined to be “administrative”—are best left to the organization that administers them. Examples include schools, churches, cemeteries, hospitals, airports, shopping centers, etc. The BGN promulgates the names, but leaves issues such as the use of the genitive or possessive apostrophe to the data owners.
Myths attempting to explain the policy include the idea that the apostrophe looks too much like a rock in water when printed on a map, and is therefore a hazard, or that in the days of “stick–up type” for maps, the apostrophe would become lost and create confusion. The probable explanation is that the BGN does not want to show possession for natural features because, “ownership of a feature is not in and of itself a reason to name a feature or change its name.”
Since 1890, only five BGN decisions have allowed the genitive apostrophe for natural features. These are: Martha's Vineyard (1933) after an extensive local campaign; Ike's Point in New Jersey (1944) because “it would be unrecognizable otherwise”; John E's Pond in Rhode Island (1963) because otherwise it would be confused as John S Pond (note the lack of the use of a period, which is also discouraged); and Carlos Elmer's Joshua View (1995 at the specific request of the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names because, “otherwise three apparently given names in succession would dilute the meaning,” that is, Joshua refers to a stand of trees. Clark’s Mountain in Oregon (2002) was approved at the request of the Oregon Board to correspond with the personal references of Lewis and Clark.
Philip Taylor said,
June 13, 2021 @ 1:51 pm
Well, I followed all six links, and could find no mention of "iron bar". ¿ Que pasa ?
[(myl) Check out the discussion around pp. 156ff of "The Stress and Structure of Modified Noun Phrases in English":
(68) pattern N1 THING-MADE-OUT-OF-N1:
rubber boots, steel plate, duck soup, gold medal, corduroy suit, brass bed, diamond ring, nylon rope, plaster cast, wax figure, asbestos tile, meat pie, chicken gumbo, wood floor, mushroom omelet, carrot halvah, rice pudding, apricot jam, corn tortillas, squash pie, beef burrito
]
Philip Taylor said,
June 13, 2021 @ 2:36 pm
Ah, thank you Mark. I was searching for the literal phrase "iron bar", so did not spot that it was analogous to other phrases being discussed.
Guy said,
June 13, 2021 @ 3:43 pm
A little different, but the dispute also reminds me a bit of the debate about whether, in “read receipt”, the first word should be pronounced as homophonous with “reed” or “red”, and how to analyze the grammar of it.
Coby Lubliner said,
June 13, 2021 @ 4:03 pm
How about these:
drug raid (US) — drugs raid (UK)
sports page (US) — sport page (UK)
Bob Ladd said,
June 13, 2021 @ 4:25 pm
@Cory Lubliner – But the US/UK difference between sport and sports is not a matter of what happens in compounds. When referring to organized games or athletic activity, US English always uses sports and UK English always uses sport. (And the opposite is true of math vs. maths.)
J.W. Brewer said,
June 13, 2021 @ 4:38 pm
I don't know if there are special rules for toponyms, including street names, but I suspect there may be. I think NOUNs Street is disfavored because adjoining /s/'s are disfavored, but when you take a common occupational noun (that's also a common surname) it's pretty easy to find instances out there of both e.g. "Hunter Road" and "Hunters Road" in the U.S. Is the -s in the latter a possessive marker or a plural marker? I dunno, and I don't know that the etymology would be the same for each instance.
FWIW, I think of the historical cause that triumphed (in the U.S.) with the ratification 101 years ago of the 19th amendment as "women's suffrage" but the google n-gram viewer confirms that "woman suffrage" was actually more common at the time. "Woman's suffrage" is also an attested variant back then but "women suffrage" seems vanishingly rare. I guess irregular nouns that don't use -s to form their plural are potentially a good way to disambiguate some of these phenomena?
J.W. Brewer said,
June 13, 2021 @ 4:55 pm
After finalizing the previous post it struck me that maybe "Road" wasn't the best thing to follow "NOUN(s)" with if the NOUN in question ended in the singular with "r." To avoid that potential complication, I confirmed that there's a Hunter Avenue in a municipality adjoining mine and a Hunters Avenue up the road in Connecticut less than a half-hour's drive away if the traffic isn't bad. Both sound perfectly natural to me, although I'm definitely open to the possibility that the latter was etymologically Hunter's Avenue even if the current spelling doesn't make that explicit.
I think there's evidence that the U.S. Post Office and other governmental entities are actively hostile to apostrophes in street names. There's a delicatessen in my town called "Wolf's Lane Deli" by the owners, who being private citizens can call it what they want, but the authorities call the street it's located on "Wolfs Lane." (Note however that "Wolves['] Lane" is not in play.)
BillR said,
June 13, 2021 @ 4:58 pm
I recall reading recently (but not, I’m afraid, where) that map makers adopted the convention of not apostrophizing place names and the like. So, Pikes Peak, and not Pike’s Peak.
Philip Taylor said,
June 13, 2021 @ 5:14 pm
Bob & Coby — are you both sure about "sports page (US) — sport page (UK)" ? I am a native speaker of <Br.E>, and although I have little interest in sport would nonetheless talk about the "sports section"of a daily newspaper. Could it be that we Britons differentiate between "sport page" and "sports section" ? I genuinely don't know, because I don't think I have ever spoken of either a sport page or a sports page. At school we had "sports day", never "sport day" and we wear a "sports jacket" not a "sport jacket".
Joe Fineman said,
June 13, 2021 @ 7:43 pm
I (US, b. 1937) seem to be an extreme on the question of singular vs plural in (what used to be called) attributive nouns. I was shocked when I read that children spontaneously came up with "mice eater"; for me it has to be "mouse eater". For me, there has to be some special reason for the plural form — notably, to distinguish an attributive noun from a homophonic adjective (e.g., "singles bar" from "single bar"). But there does seem to be a movement on. My favorite example is tooth/teeth. By the side of the well-established "toothbrush", "toothpaste", and "tooth decay", we now have "teeth care". "Tooth marks" and "teeth marks" both seem to have been around for a long time.
David W said,
June 13, 2021 @ 8:17 pm
"I think there's evidence that the U.S. Post Office and other governmental entities are actively hostile to apostrophes in street names."
Near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, there is a little road named "Hades Church Road."
The sign on the church clearly says "Hade's", probably after whoever started the church or donated the land, but PennDOT or the county roads department dropped the apostrophe.
Noam said,
June 13, 2021 @ 8:28 pm
Interestingly, https://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/28c2_007.htm suggests that the USPS does indeed prefer to avoid punctuation, but even they keep the apostrophe in the possessive in the city name at least.
On a barely related note, I had a professor who felt that it should be a Green function ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green%27s_function ) as opposed to Green’s function, by analogy to Bessel function, Chebychev function, etc.
Alexander Browne said,
June 13, 2021 @ 8:48 pm
Philip Taylor: I'm a native American English speakers, and for me it would be "I have little interest in sports". https://www.bbc.com/sport is topped with "Sport". https://www.nytimes.com/section/sports with "Sports".
Thomas Rees said,
June 13, 2021 @ 10:07 pm
As for “the convention of not apostrophizing place names”:
Hail to thee, Pikes Peak!
Hill thou never wert
That from Colorado Springs
Driveth thy full car
Or you could take the cog railway because apparently it’s reopening this week!
Bob Ladd said,
June 14, 2021 @ 12:40 am
@Alexander Browne:
Thanks. That's exactly the difference I was talking about.
Philip Taylor said,
June 14, 2021 @ 2:21 am
Alexander Browner's « I'm a native American English speakers, and for me it would be "I have little interest in sports" » set me thinking, because (a) I had not consciously registered that I had written "I have no interest in sport", but far more importantly (b) because somehow, for me, "I have no interest in sport" and "I have no interest in sports" mean two (subtly) different things.— the singular version means the very concept if sport (two or more people competing against each other, either singly or in teams, in a physical activity) whilst the plural version refers to the various sporting activities in which mankind participates — tennis, football, horse-racing and so on. Are they different ? I think so, but I would have a hard time explaining exactly what the difference is.
Julian said,
June 14, 2021 @ 4:02 am
From The Australian newspaper, 20 may 2021:
'Mouse plague crisis: NSW Government secures one of the world's strongest mice killing chemicals '
Doug said,
June 14, 2021 @ 6:15 am
@BillR:
The US Board on Geographic Names has a bias against apostrophes:
"Since 1890, only five BGN decisions have allowed the genitive apostrophe for natural features. These are: Martha's Vineyard (1933) after an extensive local campaign; Ike's Point in New Jersey (1944) because “it would be unrecognizable otherwise”; John E's Pond in Rhode Island (1963) because otherwise it would be confused as John S Pond (note the lack of the use of a period, which is also discouraged); and Carlos Elmer's Joshua View (1995 at the specific request of the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names because, “otherwise three apparently given names in succession would dilute the meaning,” that is, Joshua refers to a stand of trees. Clark’s Mountain in Oregon (2002) was approved at the request of the Oregon Board to correspond with the personal references of Lewis and Clark."
https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/board-on-geographic-names/how-do-i
CuConnacht said,
June 14, 2021 @ 7:01 am
The worst apostrophe deletion in a place name that I know of is Fishs Eddy, NY.
Trogluddite said,
June 14, 2021 @ 8:32 am
@Philip Taylor
I (also a BrE speaker) share those senses: 'sport' can denote a category abstractly (by its conditions for membership, so to speak), and 'sports' denotes a concrete list or set of items from that category (possibly all of them).
However, the latter sense also has a singular form when denoting just one concrete sport (as it does right there!). So I think that it would be better to say that we have here two senses of the word 'sport', of which the more abstract sense has no plural form. This produces e.g.; "X is sport"/"X and Y are sport", while the more concrete sense produces; "X is *a* sport"/"Y is *the* sport"/"X and Y are sport*s*" (I find all five examples perfectly cromulent).
Sadly, I am too poor a linguist to be able say exactly what the grammatical difference is formally, but it is an integral component of my idiolect, as it apparently is of yours.
cameron said,
June 14, 2021 @ 9:01 am
It's not the case that "US English always uses sports and UK English always uses sport" as Bob Ladd says above. As Philip Taylor pointed out above, usages like "sports day" would use the plural form in British English. Likewise, in compounds like "water sports", "motor sports", "winter sports", etc. British English uses the plural form.
Alexander Browne said,
June 14, 2021 @ 10:29 am
But, at least for this American English speaker, it is the case that I'd never use "sport" in a general sense, but always "sports". I can use "sports" as a singular count noun, such as "Skateboarding is (not) a sport" and in other usages like "She's a good sport". The closest thing I do say is "sporting goods", meaning "sports equipment".
Philip Taylor said,
June 14, 2021 @ 11:34 am
Alexander — suppose that you viewed UFC with considerable distaste, and could not understand how others could enjoy the spectacle — might you not be tempted, if a friend insisted on watching it while you were visiting, to say "That's not sport — it's just two sub-humans doing their d@mndest to inflict grievous bodily harm on each other". The question hinges, of course, on "That's not sport" as opposed to "That's not a sport".
RfP said,
June 14, 2021 @ 1:15 pm
@Philip: I can’t speak for Alexander, but this American English speaker would never use “sport” in that context. My noun for the global concept of sports is—“sports.”
That said, “I would never kill for sport.” And I’m not completely certain why I’d use “sport” here, but I think it’s because “sports” is for organized games, as opposed to a more generic activity from which one derives pleasure.
Philip Taylor said,
June 14, 2021 @ 1:33 pm
So in general, and although we might phrase things differently, we (most, that is) seem to be in agreement that "sport" is a generic concept, whilst "sports" covers a finite-but-unbounded set of sporting activities and/or organised games. Would that be a fair summary ?
J.W. Brewer said,
June 14, 2021 @ 1:37 pm
In AmEng you would more typically express that "not sport" concept via other wording, like "unsportsmanlike." Or with "not a sport but a [more pejorative noun]." The anarthrous singular "sport" in "for sport" is I think limited to activities where there's a meaningful contrast between doing the thing for sport and doing the same thing for a more utilitarian purpose. So you can hunt deer for sport or paddle a canoe for sport but you can't really play golf for sport because that creates an "as opposed to what?" problem. Contra RfP I think that holds even if you think of hunting or canoeing as also falling within the general category of "sports" ("field sports" in the former case, and competitive canoeing is in the Olympics).
Of course, unedifying and brutal things can be done "for sport" in that sense: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." I'm not sure how Philip T.'s "not sport" critique would fare as a rejoinder to that.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 14, 2021 @ 1:51 pm
OTOH, "sports coat" and "sport coat" continue to co-exist as names for an article of male clothing.in what may be close to free variation. Per the google n-gram viewer, the version with the -s was more common until the end of WW2, then the trendlines crossed. Yet "sports jacket" remains more common than "sport jacket" and I think all four labels have the same referent.
I think, however, that all these variants are part of a fixed idiom, and the sartorial world in which the item of clothing might have been thought to transparently relate to some more general sense of "sport(s)" than a suit jacket would was dead and gone long before my now-middle-aged generational cohort was dressing itself.
Batchman said,
June 14, 2021 @ 3:52 pm
J. R. Brewer: it struck me that maybe "Road" wasn't the best thing to follow "NOUN(s)" with if the NOUN in question ended in the singular with "r."
Somebody had better tell Bruce Springsteen.
Batchman said,
June 14, 2021 @ 3:55 pm
US Senator, former governor and former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney received much ridicule for using "sport" where most Americans would say "sports." It made him appear elitist; or, rather, it confirmed such a suspicion in the minds of many voters.
This article contains many examples: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/mitt-romney-says-sport/
J.W. Brewer said,
June 14, 2021 @ 4:42 pm
@Batchman: the internet informs me that there is a "Many Thunders Road" in Larimer County, Colorado. Just plain "Thunders Road" might evoke an association with the late Johnny Thunders, who was indubitably cooler (even if less oriented toward bourgeois values like commercial success and physical self-preservation) than Mr. Springsteen.
RfP said,
June 14, 2021 @ 9:38 pm
I mostly agree with J.W. Brewer’s more precise view of “for sport,” but I don’t think I’d ever say that I went canoeing for sport. That’s something I do for fun!
Terry K. said,
June 15, 2021 @ 11:40 am
Regarding the UFC example, for me, "That's not a sport" works and is appropriate to say. Neither "That's not sport" nor "That's not sports" work. The first doesn't mean anything. The 2nd doesn't mean anything beyond perhaps stating the obvious, that one sport isn't "sports". So far as I know I'm a typical American in that.
Since I don't comprehend what "That's not sport" means, I can't say if "That's not a sport" means the same thing. I do see J.W. Brewer's comment with a suggesting of what it means and how to say it in American English.
Philip Taylor said,
June 15, 2021 @ 1:25 pm
I find it interesting that to Terry, "that's not sport" does not mean anything. In British English we have an idiom "that's not cricket". Assuming that Terry has some awareness of what cricket is, I would like to know whether "that's not cricket" means something to him, even if the exact meaning is unclear.
Terry K. said,
June 15, 2021 @ 5:55 pm
Yes, "that's not cricket" makes sense.
Cricket (when referring to the sport) is a non-count noun. Sport is, for me, a count noun. That may be the difference.
stephen said,
June 19, 2021 @ 10:52 am
A similar idea I've seen…
A man's man.
An actress' actress.
A baseball player's baseball player.
A cook's cook.
The meaning seems to be one that another one can look up to.
Google has results for all of those phrases.
Jan said,
June 20, 2021 @ 2:39 pm
British newspapers have sports editors and they edit the sports section. But the paper's table of contents will call it sport.