[Idiom] What is the difference between ‘mystery stories’ and ‘mysterious stories’?

[yabi]

2[SUP]nd[/SUP] phrase sounds more logical to me as its structure is adjective+noun.
Mystery is not an adjective, therefore mystery stories in 1[SUP]st[/SUP] phrase don’t obey the logical pattern and I think its meaning is something else.

 

[SlickVic9000]

(Not a Teacher)

On the contrary, "mystery story" makes more sense than "mysterious story". A "mystery story" is a story about a mystery. A "mysterious story" means that the story itself is mysterious, which is something I find hard to picture.

 

[MikeNewYork]

2[SUP]nd[/SUP] phrase sounds more logical to me as its structure is adjective+noun.
Mystery is not an adjective, therefore mystery stories in 1[SUP]st[/SUP] phrase don’t obey the logical pattern and I think its meaning is something else.

Many nouns in English can be used as attributive nouns. In that use, they function as adjectives describing the following nouns. Thus, in "mystery story", mystery describes the type of story. It is a very common English construction.

See more here: attributive noun - definition and examples of attributive nouns in English