Two nouns, the one indicate what the other does

[twolivesbehindschedule]

I may have seen this many times but the example that comes in mind is the ''wayback machine''
before I notice this i thought that the ''right'' in English is to have a verb before the noun to indicate what the noun does, like a ''milling machine'' a ''trimming machine'' etc, or an adjective to indicate what it is for or where it is, like a ''remote machine''

and then I realised that you use also nouns there for indicators like the ''wayback machine'' that as i understand it doesn't specify if the machine is somewhere on the way back or is for the way back.

my question is how much freedom you have on it?
can i make out of my mind such types like ''vanity machine'' ''entropy machine'' where one noun indicates the other? is this right linguistically?

Thank you

 

[GoesStation]

The noun that modifies the other one is an attributive noun.

 

[Phaedrus]

. . . i thought that the ''right'' in English is to have a verb before the noun to indicate what the noun does, like a ''milling machine'' a ''trimming machine'' etc . . . can i make out of my mind such types like ''vanity machine'' ''entropy machine'' where one noun indicates the other?

With "machine," normally an -ing modifier is used to indicate what the machine does. A washing machine, e.g., is a machine that washes.

In many cases, however, we drop the word "machine" and add the -er suffix to indicate the machine and its function in one fell swoop.

Thus, another word for "washing machine" is "washer"; for "dish-washing machine," "dishwasher"; for "coffee-making machine," "coffeemaker."

In other cases, the word "machine" is kept and the product of what the machine does is used as the attributive noun. Witness "popcorn machine."

"Wayback Machine" is the name of a business. "Wayback" does not denote what the machine does. The idea is that the machine "takes you way back."

The only case that comes to my mind in which the attributive noun describes the function of the "machine" is the James Brown song "Sex Machine."

 

[emsr2d2]

I may have seen this many times but the example that comes in mind is the ''wayback machine''.
Before I notice this I thought that the ''right'' in English is to have a verb before the noun to indicate what the noun does, like a ''milling machine'' a ''trimming machine'' etc, or an adjective to indicate what it is for or where it is, like a ''remote machine''.

And then I realised that you use also nouns there for indicators like the ''wayback machine'' that as I understand it doesn't specify if the machine is somewhere on the way back or is for the way back.

My question is how much freedom you have on it?
Can I make out of my mind such types like ''vanity machine'' ''entropy machine'' where one noun indicates the other? Is this right linguistically?

Thank you.

Please look carefully at the changes I have made to your post above. You must start every sentence with a capital letter, always capitalise the word "I" (first person singular pronoun) and end every sentence with one appropriate punctuation mark.

There are other (grammatical) errors but I didn't have time to make those corrections. Someone else will do so shortly, I'm sure.

 

[Rover_KE]

For the benefit of those like me who'd never heard of it:

The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web, founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit library based in San Francisco. It allows the user to go “back in time” and see what websites looked like in the past.

(Wikipedia)

 

[twolivesbehindschedule]

Thank you for the answers.

The punctuation errors are due to the time I made the post late last night, I can handle this. Some syntax errors are due to the influx of Greek that my English have, It's a way of thinking that it's hard to change. Other errors are pure ignorance. It's not my purpose to pass for a native, but when I publish something it must at least have a linguistically correct title.

What I see in the article is that there are inconsistencies, not all cases sound correct even if they are grammatically identical like ''writers conference'' and ''women magazine''. There are even cases where the adjective-noun and the noun-noun have different meanings.

"visual examination" versus "vision examination": the first typically means "an examination made visually", whereas the latter means "an examination of the patient's vision".

So I was right to wary.

 

[GoesStation]

"Wayback Machine" is the name of a business. "Wayback" does not denote what the machine does. The idea is that the machine "takes you way back."

The name comes from the Peabody's Improbable History segments of the excellent 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series. "Wayback" told you what the machine did: take you way back in time.

 

[Tarheel]

The name comes from the Peabody's Improbable History segments of the excellent 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series. "Wayback" told you what the machine did: take you way back in time.

I enjoyed Rockie and Bullwinkle immensely. That takes me back--way back.
;-)

(They used terms like "airy persiflage" which told you it was really targeted at adults more than children. )

 

[Tarheel]

So I was right to wary.

Do you mean:

So I was right to worry

?

 

[Tarheel]

I may have seen this many times, but the example that comes to mind is the ''wayback machine''.

You might want to post one sentence at a time. (It's quite a job unraveling them.)

 

[twolivesbehindschedule]

Where have you seen this?
Can you give us some examples you have found?

The examples are all from the wikipedia article that GoesStation posted in the first reply (#2 post)

So I was right to wary.

Do you mean:

So I was right to worry?

No, I mean wary, I used it as a verb, maybe world's first. ''So I was right to be wary'' is it now better?

You might want to post one sentence at a time. (It's quite a job unraveling them.)

Not practical, you might want to make all the corrections in one post.
(It's quite a job for someone to read this thread.)

 

[GoesStation]

No, I meant "wary". I used it as a verb, maybe world's first. [The phrase I've colored blue is meaningless.] Is ''So I was right to be wary'' [STRIKE]is it now[/STRIKE] better?

See my corrections above. Yes, that's correct. "Wary" is a noun. There is no verb "to wary".

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The name comes from the Peabody's Improbable History segments of the excellent 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series. "Wayback" told you what the machine did: take you way back in time.

Right. It's also spelled WABAC Machine.

 

[Tarheel]

It still doesn't make sense to me. What is there for you to be wary of?

You seem to want somebody to do your editing for you--for free.

(If it's quite a job to read this thread, whose fault is that? (Just saying.))

 

[Phaedrus]

The name comes from the Peabody's Improbable History segments of the excellent 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series. "Wayback" told you what the machine did: take you way back in time.

In post #3, I said that "Wayback Machine" referred to a machine that "takes you way back" (yes, in time).

The reason I don't view "Wayback" as telling you what the machine does is that "way back" is but an adverbial in "takes you way back."

One can also say, simply, "It takes me back," where "back" is an adverb.

In "way back," "way" is an intensifying adverb that modifies the adverb "back."

Arguably, "Wayback Machine" does not contain an attributive noun at all, any more than an "UpUpAndAway Machine" would.

"Time machine" definitely contains an attributive noun, but I'm not sure if I'd want to say that "time" describes what a time machine does.

 

[twolivesbehindschedule]

It still doesn't make sense to me. What is there for you to be wary of?

You seem to want somebody to do your editing for you--for free.

I made a thread for some very general rules that may or may not help me for a title, do I really have to pay for it?

I'm wary because everything else can be fixed except the title, once I cache it it's over.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm wary because everything else can be fixed except the title, once I cache it it's over.

You can edit everything (including your title) for 24 hours after the time you post it.

 

[Rover_KE]

To edit your title, you need to Go Advanced.

 

[twolivesbehindschedule]

You can edit everything (including your title) for 24 hours after the time you post it.

To edit your title, you need to Go Advanced.

Thanks for the advice, my comment is not clear and it's my mistake. I'm talking for the title of a project that I'm going to create proofing for intellectual property rights and I have to have a proper title at least.

To recap, the examples ''vanity machine'' and ''entropy machine'' that I mentioned in the original post, do they sound improper like "women magazine"?

 

[GoesStation]

To recap, the examples ''vanity machine'' and ''entropy machine'' that I mentioned in the original post, do they sound improper like "women magazine"?

No, they're good examples of attributive nouns.