Tuesday, February 21, 2006

'Down,' Boy!

Knockdown is one word. Rundown is one word. But you might have a knock-down, drag-out fight in a run-down neighborhood.

See what's happening here? The space-hyphen-solid decision is complicated by a coincidental word, and the difference is a lot more subtle, and likely to fool even experienced word people, than, say, bare foot (n.) vs. barefoot (adj., adv.).

A rundown, obviously, is a summary -- nothing to do with decrepitude. But a knock-down fight involves knockdowns. You might even dispute my contention that the solid form does not apply, but I think the juxtaposition with drag-out makes the truth clear.

Do any other examples come to mind? Heck the linguists probably even have a cute term for the phenomenon. If not, let's make one up.

3 comments:

DV said...

Is it possible those westerners are using "knockdown" to mean "insult" when they could be using "putdown" instead?

Bill said...

I'm afraid I've been preoccupied with the ACES board's civil war.

kelly-lynne said...

You can always roll over your 401(k) without pentalty by abiding to the IRA Rollover rules according to the IRS.