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General Category => Words => Topic started by: mkenuk on July 04, 2020, 06:34:02 PM

Title: Compound words
Post by: mkenuk on July 04, 2020, 06:34:02 PM
Yesterday's protoplasm game confirmed for me something that I have always suspected, namely that compound words are among the hardest to spot in Chi games.
I missed both taproom and palmtop.

While on the subject of compound words, it is sometimes difficult to predict which ones Chi will accept.
There seems to be no consensus on which words need a hyphen, which can be written as one single word and which written as two words..

lamppost is classed as 'common' although COD (in which we trust) clearly shows it as two separate words.
Conversely spotlamp ('sorry, not known' in Chi). is written as one word!

 ???



Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: Jacki on July 04, 2020, 11:08:57 PM
At the risk of being a whinger, I for one have no knowledge of palmtop being a common word. I think taproom, which I got, and lamppost, which I didn't are at least known to me. I've clicked on the definition and apparantly it's an electronic device. Common? Well if Mike didn't get it, I don't think so!
Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: TRex on July 05, 2020, 12:17:35 AM
Yesterday's protoplasm game confirmed for me something that I have always suspected, namely that compound words are among the hardest to spot in Chi games.

Too true. I know compound words are especially bugbears for my better half.
Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: mkenuk on July 05, 2020, 02:29:25 AM
I for one have no knowledge of palmtop being a common word. I think taproom, which I got, and lamppost, which I didn't are at least known to me. Common? Well if Mike didn't get it, I don't think so!

I think you may be missing the point, Jackie.
In fact I think all three words - taproom, palmtop and lamppost - are quite correctly classified as common. [I would add spotlamp, if it were to be allowed, to that list.]

My point is simply that, in general, compound words such as these are often much harder to find than 'normal words'.

Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: Morbius on July 05, 2020, 07:06:20 AM
I agree that compound words are hard to find.  However, I wouldn't agree that palmtop and taproom are common words.  They're not common to me, at least.  I did get palmtop, but not taproom.  I've actually never heard the word before.
Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: mkenuk on July 05, 2020, 09:42:11 AM
I've probably come to regard taproom as common through seeing it so often in historical fiction - Dickens, Hardy and the like.

palmtop, like walkman, has probably had its day.

Maybe they are not as common as I thought.

I still should have seen them, though!
Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: TRex on July 05, 2020, 01:58:40 PM
I've probably come to regard taproom as common through seeing it so often in historical fiction - Dickens, Hardy and the like.

palmtop, like walkman, has probably had its day.

My wife and I shop at a large grocery store which has a 'Taproom' — though it isn't my idea of a taproom: too few beers.

I think palmtop has definitely seen its day. Anyone under the age of thirty probably hasn't heard of one.
Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: mkenuk on July 12, 2020, 09:20:49 PM
Caught out by a compound word again yesterday in the petrifying 10-letter game.

fingertip cost me a rosette.

A perfectly good, common, everyday word. Just so difficult to spot.
Title: Re: Compound words
Post by: Morbius on July 12, 2020, 10:39:24 PM
Me too!  :(