- #71
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Thanks for passing that along, Barry. I just about fell over when I read it. What a thrill to get Merl's feedback! 
Favorite crossword author, Merl Reagle
- Thread starter Math Is Hard
- Start date
In summary, Merl Reagle did a theme last Sunday on "trinonyms". I thought it was pretty clever. He explains them like this: "One of the definitions of bath is "bathtub," which makes the word bathtub itself a linguistic rarity: bath, tub, and bathtub are all synonyms—or "trinonyms," if you will. After stalking these odd birds for many years I found only ten others—just enough for a puzzle." This is a fun puzzle with good clues.
- #72
honestrosewater
Gold Member
- 2,143
- 6
Here's an idea. [NOUN][ADJECTIVE] compounds, such as
You can form them by pretending that you're completing a simile by filling in the blanks below.
Here's how it can give you trinonyms. In the above type of compounds, you're selecting one property of the noun's referent and using it to modify the adjective. The property of the noun's referent that gets selected is determined by the adjective accompanying the noun in the compound. So paper thin selects the thinness of the paper, razor sharp selects the sharpness of the razor, etc.
The noun seems to be acting in a way like an adverb, answering 'How [ADJECTIVE]?' or something similar (ones involving colors, for example, have been wiggling away from me so far (is the right constituent a property or entity?)). If you think the meaning of razor sharp is closer to very sharp than to sharp, just choose your noun so that the answer to 'How [ADJECTIVE]?' is 'moderately/normally/typically [ADJECTIVE]', or just plain '[ADJECTIVE]'. So now the compound and adjective have the same meaning.
The noun gets a chance to have the same meaning by being used as an adjective. Doing this will select the 'special' property or properties of the noun's referrent. You need to make it so that the property you want can be selected without needing a prompt from the adjective as before. That is, choose nouns that are 'known' for a particular property. For example, to me, the standout property of a razor is its sharpness, or its ability to cut. So when razor is used as an adjective, sharpness, or ability to cut, is the first property that I associate with it, taking razor to basically mean sharp or able to cut.
If anyone wants to play with it, I think it has potential. The issues that I see are how you feel about figurative speech and, if you are basing your judgements at least partly on how often it turns up somewhere, finding nouns that don't tend to take on affixes when used as adjectives. For example, -y has already popped up for me: ice, rose, pillow have the obvious icy, rosy, pillowy option when being used as adjectives, so you might not find the noun form as often. (Oh, duh, then you have icy cold, pillowy soft, etc.) You can experiment some to see what helps a noun resist taking on affixes when switching to an adjective function. Hm, -like might be productive, or close to it, but it has its drawbacks, so it might not pose much of a threat.
By the bye, '"razor wit"' returned 31,000 hits on google just now. '"razor like wit" OR "razorlike wit"' returned 303.
ice cold
paper thin
feather light
lightning fast
rock hard
pillow soft
razor sharp
?blood red
?fire engine red
could be a good source of trinonyms, depending on what exactly you want to count as a trinonym and what you take as your corpus. paper thin
feather light
lightning fast
rock hard
pillow soft
razor sharp
?blood red
?fire engine red
You can form them by pretending that you're completing a simile by filling in the blanks below.
... is as cold as ice.
... is as light as a feather.
... is as [ADJECTIVE] as (a(n)/the) [NOUN].
Now take out this [ADJECTIVE] and [NOUN] and invert them to form a [NOUN][ADJECTIVE] compound. The template is just to give you the idea. You're simply looking for a property (e.g., coldness) and an entity that can exemplify that property (e.g., ice).... is as light as a feather.
... is as [ADJECTIVE] as (a(n)/the) [NOUN].
Here's how it can give you trinonyms. In the above type of compounds, you're selecting one property of the noun's referent and using it to modify the adjective. The property of the noun's referent that gets selected is determined by the adjective accompanying the noun in the compound. So paper thin selects the thinness of the paper, razor sharp selects the sharpness of the razor, etc.
The noun seems to be acting in a way like an adverb, answering 'How [ADJECTIVE]?' or something similar (ones involving colors, for example, have been wiggling away from me so far (is the right constituent a property or entity?)). If you think the meaning of razor sharp is closer to very sharp than to sharp, just choose your noun so that the answer to 'How [ADJECTIVE]?' is 'moderately/normally/typically [ADJECTIVE]', or just plain '[ADJECTIVE]'. So now the compound and adjective have the same meaning.
The noun gets a chance to have the same meaning by being used as an adjective. Doing this will select the 'special' property or properties of the noun's referrent. You need to make it so that the property you want can be selected without needing a prompt from the adjective as before. That is, choose nouns that are 'known' for a particular property. For example, to me, the standout property of a razor is its sharpness, or its ability to cut. So when razor is used as an adjective, sharpness, or ability to cut, is the first property that I associate with it, taking razor to basically mean sharp or able to cut.
She has a razor sharp wit.
She has a sharp wit.
She has a razor wit.
She has a sharp wit.
She has a razor wit.
If anyone wants to play with it, I think it has potential. The issues that I see are how you feel about figurative speech and, if you are basing your judgements at least partly on how often it turns up somewhere, finding nouns that don't tend to take on affixes when used as adjectives. For example, -y has already popped up for me: ice, rose, pillow have the obvious icy, rosy, pillowy option when being used as adjectives, so you might not find the noun form as often. (Oh, duh, then you have icy cold, pillowy soft, etc.
) You can experiment some to see what helps a noun resist taking on affixes when switching to an adjective function. Hm, -like might be productive, or close to it, but it has its drawbacks, so it might not pose much of a threat.By the bye, '"razor wit"' returned 31,000 hits on google just now. '"razor like wit" OR "razorlike wit"' returned 303.
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- #73
scott_alexsk
- 336
- 0
How about rucksack? Though the only second similee is spelled differently with rooke or rook being used by the military to refer to back packs. I could not find any other reference to the use of rook as meaning bag besides my own knowledge.
-scott
-scott
- #74
scott_alexsk
- 336
- 0
Also textbook is one.
-scott
-scott
- #75
BobG
Science Advisor
Homework Helper
- 352
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I hope you're not a big fan of Stanley Newman. In his April 28 crossword, the clue for 39 across: "Like slide rules"Math Is Hard said:
O _ _ M _ _ E _
- #76
- 4,652
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BobG said:
HOW RUDE!
I hope you sent him a nasty letter!