"Trigger happy" is a normal compound, taking its basic meaning and part of speech from the final element. It's an adjective like "happy," not a noun like "trigger," and is more a kind of happy than a kind of trigger.
Greek generally follow the opposite rule to English. Thus a hippopotamus is a kind of "horse," not a kind of river; and philosophy is the love of wisdom, not the wisdom of love.
I wrote about that word's unusual morphology some years ago, but I never knew its rather unique origin story.
ReplyDeletehttps://wmjas.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/morphological-scofflaws/
That's a most interesting blog post and principle!
Delete"Trigger happy" is a compound that comes to mind, although I'm not sure if it counts.
"Trigger happy" is a normal compound, taking its basic meaning and part of speech from the final element. It's an adjective like "happy," not a noun like "trigger," and is more a kind of happy than a kind of trigger.
DeleteGreek generally follow the opposite rule to English. Thus a hippopotamus is a kind of "horse," not a kind of river; and philosophy is the love of wisdom, not the wisdom of love.
Ah, gotcha. That makes sense. Thank you!
Delete