Compound stores

Senket · Post by **Senket** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:08 am

This came up in our textbook tonight. A passage included "bookstore" (compound noun) and "shoe store" (adjectival + noun). Of course, I have a student who wants to know what's up with that. (My answer: I don't know. Let me get back to you on that.)

One rule seems to be that one can't make a compound with a polysyllabic adjectival. "Grocery store", "clothing store", "furniture store", "hardware store" are never compound.

"Drugstore" is okay to me, but "shoestore" looks terrible. I'm ambivalent about "toystore". Perhaps one doesn't compound an adjectival that ends in a vowel?

abufletcher · Post by **abufletcher** » Wed May 10, 2006 7:35 am

Once again, I fear there is no "grammar" answer. Just frequency.

It's like the situation with the historical development of "cupboard." First it was "cup board" then it became "cupboard" which led (or perhaps co-incided with) the consolidation into the pronunciation "cubberd."

One interesting possibility would be the freqency with which these compounds are themselves used to as descriptors of some further nominal, e.g. "drugstore prints." Just thinking out loud here.

At any rate I strongly doubt that an answer to such a question is accessible via introspection.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:51 pm

Two words, hyphenated or one word? Sometimes you see a transition and sometimes all three coexist.

Your intuitions about shoestore/shoe store and toystore/toy store are backed up by Google. "shoe store" is thirty times more common than 'shoestore' whilst "toy store" is only three times more common than "toystore". I suspect in this case sound is the reason for the difference.

sbourque · Post by **sbourque** » Tue May 16, 2006 11:29 pm

"Shoestore" sounds (and looks) funny, but what about "shoeshine"?

It seems to me that many compounds go through a progression:

1)two separate words > 2)first word- hyphen- second word >
3)firstwordsecondword

Examples (as they are mostly written now): weekend, worldwide

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Wed May 17, 2006 9:54 am

Unfortunately for your student, there isn't a "rule" they can learn which will predict whether a compound noun is one word, two words or hyphenated. It just seems to depend on how established they are.

In the meantime, students will have to do what native speakers have to do i.e. learn the items individually.