Grammar nitpicks, descriptive linguistics, etc

Same. Based “based on” fan.

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While we’re on the topic, how does everyone feel about “based around.” as in, “His entire philosophy is based around a book he read in high school.” It seems to suggest a kind of outward expansion from the book, but some people have said that it defies logic to say that something is based “around” something.

As for “based off,” I have always had the impression that it signifies a major departure from the original (i.e. basis), kind of like saying “loosely based on” or “used as a starting point.”

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“Based around” to me means that a bunch of different aspects feature something as a central feature. “We based the WonderBot 5000 around the i263 AI chipset.” means that they started with the i263 AI chipset and all of the other design decisions were a result of that starting point so that they are somehow all directly or indirectly related to that decision. The “around” part seems very natural in that you could put a whole bunch of other verbs in there to replace it.

“We designed the car around a solor-powered engine.”
“He lives his life around a stoic philosophy.”

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Every time I see someone using “Gilead” like this, I feel bad for Marilynne Robinson.

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Are you sure it shouldn’t be “Vehicle width-restrictor”? It is a compound of three nouns and the headed-ness sure seems ambiguous to me. In other words, should it be

( (VehicleNN widthNN)AdjP restrictorNN)NP
or
( VehicleNN (widthNN restictorNN)NN)NP

Both types of compounds common and semantically it is something like “A restrictor on Vehicle width” vs “A width-restrictor for vehicles”.

Yes, I’m sure. Thanks for asking.

Are you also sure that you should call a noun-noun compound an adjective?

I know that this is a personal, stylistic choice on my part (and possibly not fully “correct”), but I really, really do not like using hyphens and will avoid using them to the extent possible without sacrificing meaning.

For example, when my company developed what they call “性能持続技術,” I insisted on translating it as “Performance Sustaining Technology” in all of the press materials even though I knew that there should be a hyphen between “Performance” and “Sustaining.” Hyphens just seriously mess with the flow of a sentence…

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Beidseitige, unverschiebbar montierte Fahrspurbreitenbeschränkungspfosten.

I don’t think so, especially when they clarify meaning.

Performance Sustaining Technology without a hyphen could be confusing if readers wonder if the performance being talked about somehow sustains technology.

Are you asking for four foot-long boards or four-foot-long boards?

I realize from your comment though that you do consent to using them at times. :wink:

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Yeah, I usually just use prepositions (or adverbs) to work around having to stick two nouns (or two adjectives) together to begin with, but I will use a hyphen if it can’t be avoided. I will almost always choose to write “a man, aged twenty,” or “a man who is twenty years old” instead of “a twenty-year-old man,” just because I like to have no single word stick out in a sentence just because of its length.

I find that the use of hyphens becomes rather inconsistent with proper nouns, so you can bend the rules a bit when you are coining a new term. Translation is fun in that way.

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Gimme four candles.

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Expressions that should be retired, unless intended as an anachronism.

Anything with a dime as a reference to a phone call.
Betting dollars to doughnuts, now that a bag of 13 doughnuts costs far more than a dollar.

Soon to be retired:
Glacially slow.

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Don’t you thinking ‘dialing’ a phone might be first on that list?!

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tenor (29)

Is there an “expression” about dialing a phone?

Heck, we don’t even “key” most phones anymore.

I still see commercials saying “Dial 1-800-867-5309” or whatever on TV and billboards. Slowly being replaced by “Call 800-588-2300”

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