[NOTE: I’m forwarding this on behalf of Peter Fries, whose posting got bounced by ATEG for some reason. It’s delayed by a day, however; he sent it last night but I’m just now going through email]

 

<<<<< 

 

Does this nominalization suffix account for distinctions such as:

 

a communications problem vs. a communication problem a sales manager vs. a sale manager.

 

While I'm writing, let me refer back to the discussion of constructions such as 'accounts receivable', in which adjectives follow nouns.

 

In this context, no one has mentioned an example which my prescriptive self finds particularly annoying.  I have often heard newscasters, when interviewing the attorney general of some state or of the of federal gov't, address the person as 'general'.

 

 

Peter H. Fries

 

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