Re: noun compounds

Joe wrote:
> Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
>
>> On 06/03/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>>
>>> As far as I am concerned, 'Apfel-Brombeer-Pastete' is a true compound.
>>> It contrast with the English "apple and blackberry pie" where the
>>> conjunction 'and' is need as it conjoining the epithet nouns 'apple' and
>>> 'blackberry', both being epithets of the head noun 'pie'.
>>>
>> How about "orange mango juice" or "apple pear juice" in English? Do
>> they count as true compounds? (This sort of grammar seems most readily
>> doable with juices, and not jams or pies. Even still, it seems a
>> little odd in the generic case, but it's what juice companies often
>> do.)
>
> That's not possible in my 'lect, at least.  And I suspect that applies
> to the rest of the UK and Ireland
I am sure Joe is correct about the rest of the UK and, I suspect,
Ireland also. I have neither seen nor heard such usages. All the
examples of mixed juice drinks I've come across so far in supermarkets
etc still put in the 'and' (or at least an ampersand).

To me "orange mango juice" would mean only 'juice made from mangoes and
colored orange". I have in a cupboard in my kitchen a bottle of "pink
grapefruit juice". I do not think the juice is made from pinks (flowers
of genus Dianthus) and grapefruits!

As for "apple pear juice", that is simply ungrammatical in the English I
have used and spoken these past 60+ years. Heaven preserve us from such
juice companies.

But if these companies cannot even bother to print an ampersand then,
yes, they have IMO formed true compounds in the German manner; they just
can't be bothered to put in the hyphens.

--
Ray
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