Teacher Discussion Forums

Hopefully a quick one. What part of speech is "galore", as in "whiskey galore"?

Adjective, as in 'notary public'?

My Chambers says "abverb" but why I don't know.

BTW it's of Irish origin.

Merriam Webster Online says "adjective" and American Heritage (Bartleby) agrees.

Whatever Chambers says, it's an adjective. In my far from humble opinion.

Like "aplenty" (which Chambers also thinks is an adverb, as does Wordsmyth.net)

I think "galore" and "aplenty" are both adjectives too. Is "aplenty" archaic now, btw? Chambers is probably following the old tradition that it if a word doesn't fit into normal schemes of definition, it is an adverb by default.

"Galore" and "aplenty" are a bit weird in that other adjectives that follow the noun only seem to do so in set expressions, coming before it in others:

Chicken supreme/Supreme being
Court martial/Martial arts
Notary public/Public convienience

"Galore" and "aplenty", on the other hand can only follow the noun.

Are there any other adjectives that do this?

I propose "elect" and "designate" as in "President -------"

What about "else" ? "Somebody else": is that "else" an adjective?

Juan wrote:

I propose "elect" and "designate" as in "President -------"
What about "else" ? "Somebody else": is that "else" an adjective?

"Elect" and "designate", of course, can be used for any executive position be it in government or in a club eg Home secretary designate/Sergent-at-arms elect. There's some interesting grammar going on here, these words are normally verbs but are acting as adjectives. When coming before the noun, verbs usually only act as adjectives when they are participles. It seems that the adjective for an executive actually in the position, "incumbent" can be used before or after the noun - incumbent president/president incumbent.

Adjective suffixation is beginning to be used to indicate an intended attribute eg a desk-tidy/boot-tidy or a fail-safe. These are usually hyphenated. I'm not sure about "tea-cosy"/"egg cosy" what do you think? I think "cosy" is moving from being an adjective to a noun here because you have the option of just referring to the object as a "cosy".

I think "else" is a determiner rather than an adjective here. At other times it is either an adverb or conjunction.

Time for a nice hot cuppa, I think.

'cosy' is a noun. 'tea' and 'egg' are nouns used to modify the noun cosy.

Andrew Patterson wrote:Hopefully a quick one. What part of speech is "galore", as in "whiskey galore"?

Going back in time:

Ga*lore" (?), n. & a. [Scot. gelore, gilore, galore, fr. Gael. gu le\'95r, enough; gu- to, also an adverbial prefix + le\'95r, le\'95ir, enough; or fr. Ir. goleor, the same word.] Plenty; abundance; in abundance.

Root:

Irish Gaelic go leór, enough : go, adv. particle + leór, enough (from Old Irish lour, alteration of roar; see wr-o- in Appendix I).

And here's a few variations:

http://www.google.es/search?hl=en&q=*+galore

Stephen Jones wrote:

'cosy' is a noun. 'tea' and 'egg' are nouns used to modify the noun cosy.

Maybe, but my take on it was that it was something designed to keep the tea cosy. (I think there is a touch of Victorian humour in here as for something to feel cosy it has to be sentient and the kind of heat kept in by this invention would not normally be described as being cosy, either.) And hence it would have originally been an adjectival suffix. I agree that it has become a noun, however. How else could it have a plural:

eg Egg cosies are often made to look like bobble hats in an attempt to personify the egg they cover. Personification is necessary to understand why the word cosy is used. They are ideal for people with more money than sense.

I've never seen a coffee cosy, Metal. Are you sure they exist?

My guess is that there are some more French influenced post-nominals (?) . There are all those dishes named after people: like Peach Melba , Eggs Benedict and Beef Wellington; The names must be more or less adjectives.

Actually I'm not sure about "Chicken Supreme". Wouldn't it translate as "Suprême de Poulet" suggesting that the Chicken part is the adjective?


We briefly had a coffee-cosy that was to keep hot the coffee in those glass Rombouts things that you plunge the thingy down in . It was supposed to look like a butler but rapidly got covered with coffee stains which didn't come out. And it didn't work.

I stand corrected, Juan. They do exist. A search of google revealed that as well as butlers they also do them in faux leopard skin:
http://www.coffeecosy.com.au/images/bro ... e_cosy.jpg
All done in the best possible taste!

Andrew Patterson wrote:I've never seen a coffee cosy, Metal. Are you sure they exist?

Go Google:

Results 1 - 100 of about 894 English pages for coffee-cosy.
532,000 English pages for coffee cosy.



Also:

Cf. Scot. cosie, cozie, prob. from Gael. cosach abounding in hollows, or cosagach full of holes or crevices, snug, sheltered, from cos a hollow, a crevice.]

I guess I must be leading a sheltered life! What the heck is a "coffee cosy" or a "tea cosy (cozy)"?

It sounds like a nice warm place to sit down with a hot cuppa joe.

Larry Latham