• PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • Vincentmario@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      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

      • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        “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 🤷‍♂️

        • Vincentmario@feddit.uk
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          2 days ago

          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.

          • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Hyphens clarify compounds

            Exactly, they clarify multi-word compound adjectives from multi-word non-compound adjectives. Only multi-word compound adjectives in everyday, common use can get away with forgoing the hyphen without creating the kind of confusion exemplified perfectly by the comments above. “Child-eating” is obviously not in everyday, common usage, and thus should be hyphenated.

            Reading ‘child’ as its own noun would require ‘a child’ or a different construction, which isn’t what’s written.

            I’m not reading it as its own noun, I’m reading it as a noun adjunct, describing pedophiles. If the pedophiles are children, they’re child pedophiles. If those child pedophiles are eating… Sure it should have a comma, but lord knows no one on the Internet knows how to use them properly.

            None of this really matters because it was all based on a shitreply to a doom post, who gives a shit?

            Still don’t know what gamer and yeah has to do with anything, but you do you bud 😘