Anastasia
Hi! I have a question about some compound adjectives. Is it possible to say white-teethed when describing a person? Or is white-toothed better? And is it correct to say that someone is cheek-dimpled?
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الإجابات · 12
6
White-toothed ✅ Generally, you want to attach "ed" to the singular form of the noun. For example: black-horned bull 🐂 yellow-tailed cat 🐈 Cheek-dimpled: It sounds like it makes sense, but i can't say for sure. Hopefully someone else can confirm.
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There is nothing wrong with ‘white-toothed’ or ‘dimpled-cheek’. The point is that using a compound adjective can change the meaning. For example, in the following it makes them more ordinary: ‘If you want to make a living as a model, having a white-toothed smile or a dimple-cheeked face isn’t enough in today’s market. It’s very competitive out there.’ Saying that a person is ‘white-toothed’ isn’t grammatically wrong but, like saying someone has ‘white teeth’, it’s just meaningless in most contexts.
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Someone said that white-toothed is incorrect. It is actually correct English. However, you may only see it used that way in literature. Common speech might just say, “Jack has white teeth.”
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"Cheek-dimpled" just simply isn't a valid construction. Would say someone is "leg-broken" or "skin-cut'? You could just say the person has dimples like in Paul's examples, or you could say someone has "dimpled cheeks."
٩ يناير ٢٠٢٤
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The verb "teeth" has a specific meaning that differs from what you think it means. During the time when a baby animal is growing its first teeth, it is said to be "teething". "Teeth" also acts as a noun as the plural of "tooth". However, it generally makes no sense to add "-ed" to a plural noun. "Cheek-dimpled" sounds nonsensical, but it is not wrong; it just doesn't mean what you think it means. In English, it is possible to make sense out of a great many things that appear to be nonsensical. To interpret "cheek dimpled", I would say that "dimpled" is an adjective and "cheek" as a noun. I would not interpret it to mean "having dimpled cheeks" (which is what you intended for it to mean). Rather, I would interpret it to mean "having dimples that look like cheeks". That is an implausible image, but language allows us to create implausible images, so it is not a mistake.
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