Saturday, November 28, 2015

Compound Words That Aren't

Compound words are a common feature of the English language. (And German.) There are some words, though, that aren't compound words but could have been if they'd had different etymological roots.

Whereas Christmas means "Christ's mass", and skylight means exactly what you'd think it'd mean, other words only look compound. These aren't words like acorn ("a corn"), which would never be compound because the word "a" is the same as the letter "a", which starts many words.

What if the more believable ones were compound, though? In context, they could make a little more sense. Here are some examples I thought* of:

Managers are man agers. (pic)
Works hop at the workshop. (pic)
Justice is just ice. (pic)



Hopefully you'll be able to think of many more.

Some admittedly make less sense seemingly inherently. For example:

Can one implore imp lore? (pic?)



Only the parents of the imp children who are taught their species' vast collection of myths before bed every night know the answer to that one.




*If anyone else has independently, congrats! You're also entertained by inane wordplay.

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