1159: Adjective-Noun Compounds Feb 10, 2018

Usually when people think of compounds in English, people thing of words composed of two nominal elements ('noun-noun'), or occasionally two verbal elements in the same fashion, but sometimes it is different. For instance, the nominal form of 'slow' is 'sloth', but the term for the pot that stews things over many hours is not a 'sloth-cooker' but a 'slow-cooker'; indeed, a 'sloth-cooker' would mean something very different entirely: culinarily savoury, but ethically unsavoury. What makes 'slow' here different than an ordinary adjective is that it does not describe the 'cooker' so much as it becomes a new one. As extra proof, consider that 'slow' can't be removed while retaining the core meaning, but it can be modified in ways that would otherwise be impossible semantically, as in 'fast slow-cooker', and also the stressing of the word is different than it would be with 'slow cooker'. This is also true of other words like 'sweet-meats', which unlike meat with sugar added (i.e. 'sweet meat') is a specific product. Feel free to add your own examples in the comments.
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