You’re interpreting a child being the subject of the statement. For this to be true, the original text would need to say ‘a child’. Only then would the sentence mean there’s a child going about eating paedophiles
No I’m not, I’m interpreting it as the object of the preposition by. The lack of hyphenation means that child is either a noun which is eating pedophiles or an adjective describing pedophiles who are eating. Presumably neither is what the author intended.
It says “stolen by child eating pedophiles”. The preposition “by” takes a noun phrase as its object.That noun phrase is “child eating pedophiles”. The head noun is clearly pedophiles. “child eating” is a modifier (a compound/participle phrase) describing those pedophiles
Hyphenation would make it clearer, but its absence doesn’t suddenly create a new valid reading where “child” becomes a separate noun or the main object
“Child eating” is not a compound modifier, that’s what the hyphen does. Without a hyphen, the modifiers “child” and “eating” both independently describe “pedophiles”, the hyphen makes “child-eating” into the compound adjective the author was obviously intending to convey. Wikipedia uses the example “heavy-metal detector”. Without the hyphen, you have a metal detector that’s heavy. If you need a device to detect heavy-metals, your SOL.
Absolutely no clue what “gamer and yeah” means 🤷♂️
Hyphens clarify compounds, they don’t create them. Grammatically, ‘child eating’ modifies ‘pedophiles’, the head noun. Reading ‘child’ as its own noun would require ‘a child’ or a different construction, which isn’t what’s written.
It’s not my phrasing, take it up with the OP.
You’re interpreting a child being the subject of the statement. For this to be true, the original text would need to say ‘a child’. Only then would the sentence mean there’s a child going about eating paedophiles
No I’m not, I’m interpreting it as the object of the preposition by. The lack of hyphenation means that child is either a noun which is eating pedophiles or an adjective describing pedophiles who are eating. Presumably neither is what the author intended.
It says “stolen by child eating pedophiles”. The preposition “by” takes a noun phrase as its object.That noun phrase is “child eating pedophiles”. The head noun is clearly pedophiles. “child eating” is a modifier (a compound/participle phrase) describing those pedophiles
Hyphenation would make it clearer, but its absence doesn’t suddenly create a new valid reading where “child” becomes a separate noun or the main object
Gamer and yeah
having “a” before “child” is the only way I can interpret the sentence wrong in that way, even without the hyphen
“Child eating” is not a compound modifier, that’s what the hyphen does. Without a hyphen, the modifiers “child” and “eating” both independently describe “pedophiles”, the hyphen makes “child-eating” into the compound adjective the author was obviously intending to convey. Wikipedia uses the example “heavy-metal detector”. Without the hyphen, you have a metal detector that’s heavy. If you need a device to detect heavy-metals, your SOL.
Absolutely no clue what “gamer and yeah” means 🤷♂️
Hyphens clarify compounds, they don’t create them. Grammatically, ‘child eating’ modifies ‘pedophiles’, the head noun. Reading ‘child’ as its own noun would require ‘a child’ or a different construction, which isn’t what’s written.