Compound Nouns - not collective, not plurals - something entirely different.

This lecture is all about compound nouns. compound nouns are nouns consisting of two or more words for a single item person or place and they mean something different than the individual words.

The first part tells us the kind of object or its purpose the last part tells us what the object or person is.

compound nouns have three different ways of being written they can be a combination of many word types and I usually pronounced with the stress on the first syllable compound nouns consist of two or more words for a single item person or place and means something different than the individual words.

For example bread bin we know what bread is and we know what a bin is however a bread bin is not a bin made of bread to does a bin or container for storing bread when we form compound nouns.

The first part tells us the kind of object person or its purpose in the last part tells us what the object or person is.

Here are some examples a blackbird is a bird that is black Greenhouse a house that is green.

a washing machine is a machine for doing the washing.

When we write compound nouns we have three possible ways of writing them open closed or hyphenated and fortunately there are no rules for which form is used and some compound nouns have more than one acceptable way of being written as an open compound nouns or sometimes called spaced.

Compound nouns these are written as two separate words for example washing machine water bottle swimming pool public speaking driving licence bus stop website closed compound or solid compound nouns are written as a single word boyfriend toothpaste haircut rainfall drawback software greenhouse website checkout and hyphenated compound nouns are written with a hyphen between the words mother in law check in check out check up takeoff passer by.

compound nouns can be a combination of many word types the most common forms are two nouns or an adjective and a noun many other combinations are possible some examples with two nouns boyfriend water bottle printer cartridge bedroom fish tank football handbag table cloth.

And as we can see the the way of writing the compound noun is independent of the parts that form it because some adjective noun combinations Blackbird greenhouse redhead mobile phone hardware and software.

Six Pack blackboard or whiteboard.

And again the writing form where there is open close or hyphenated is independent of the parts used look at some other combinations and please bear in mind this is not an exhaustive list we can combine a noun and the verb.

For example rainfall haircut Trainspotting we can combine a noun with an adjective spoonful capital and by adjective and a verb public speaking dry cleaning we can make a verb and a noun combination washing machine driving license we can make compound nouns with verbs and prepositions lookout drawback makeup a preposition and a noun underpants upstairs onlooker and again I would like to emphasize that there are many other combinations that are possible this is not an exhaustive list but we pronounce compound nouns are usually pronounced with the stress on the first syllable this enables us to distinguish between a compound known as for example an adjective noun combination.

Here are some examples a blackbird or the adjective noun combination a black bird a greenhouse a green house you hear the difference between black bird and a black bird and when we form plurals of compound nouns we usually form them by making a plural of the last part using all the rules that apply to plurals but there are some exceptions if in doubt use a good up to date dictionary and check it out for yourself.

There are some examples blackbirds house flies full moons for these three examples take the standard rule where the second part is made a plural using the normal rules of plurals some exceptions to this are for example mothers in law passes by secretaries general and again these are just some examples.