h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Laughing stock

Is anything other than breath ever bated?

Yes - and no.

It's a contraction of 'abated' breath.

Many things can be abated but I've never seen it used as 'bated' anywhere other than that.

As regards heinous crimes. I did know a bawdy song when I was a student that involved other uses of the word heinous but I think it was used more for its - um - shall we say - rhyming potential than anything else

Needless to say, I shan't be relaying it directly in these forums.

I did involve lots of horses arses too though.

I thought the phrase came from fishing, in particular the habit anglers have of warming maggots by placing them under their tongue for a few minutes. They then hook them, cast off and wait with baited breath.

Blithering [....]!

I thought 'Gravy'.

There are several examples of single use adjectives
formed from proper nouns.

Pyrrhic victory.
Freudian slip.
Hertzian wave.
etc


~jwf~

I see potential....
'A Pyrrhic delicacy': something which tastes awful.

Freudian column.

A Hertzian car renter?

A Freudian slit. Slip. I meant slip.

An alternate use of heinous - abbreviated!

http://www.therock.net.nz/Seen-with-a-Hein/tabid/560/articleID/5257/Default.aspx

RF

Not so fast!


Heinous: Deeds, sins, spectacles, wrongs, etc

Freudian: Theories, therapy, etc

Pyrrhic: Verses, dance movements

Hertzian: Discoveries, telegraphy, cones

Who on earth wears heinous spectacles?

Dame Edna?

Also, don't forget....

"This is most non, non, non, Heinous Dude"

>> Not so fast! <<

Aha! You miss the point.

Let me offer another example:
UNANIMOUS

Yes you can have unanimous agreement, a unanimous decision,
a unanimous vote, unanimous approval, even unanimous disapproval.

BUT, and here is the point, each of the nouns thus modified is
effectively the same thing. An agreement, a consensus, is arrived
at by all participants having a voice, expressing their opinion and
arriving at a mutually agreeable group decision.

The word unanimous can only be applied in such a circumstance.
It means 'characterised by complete agreement'.
It has that single use.

Similarly, the other examples based on proper names can only be
applied when the subject is specifically identified with the name
attached, and most of the alternatives you cite are 'extensions'
of the same principle. I had cited the principal examples.

For example, all of your uses of heinous are applied (rightly or wrongly)
to varying degrees of bad, criminal or anti-social behaviours. IE: crimes.

All the things identified as Freudian come from his work in the study of the
mind. And Hertz applied himself to investigating the physics of electricity,
being the first to produce artificial electromagnetic waves.



There is a large gray area between compound adjectives and compound
nouns emanating from possessives. I'm sure that Bunsen of the famous
Bunsen-burner did more than set fires in his lab. In most cases of personal
identities being applied to things, there comes a point where the adjective
has to become a possessive compound noun. Consider also that in the phrase
John-Lennon-glasses we might still be able to say John Lennon is an adjective
describing a particular style of spectacles, but John Lennon's shoes are likely
less specific or notable and require the possessive form with an apostrophe.



Also please note that the use of pyrrhic to identify a specific measure of
rhythm does not come from the same source. One comes from a dancer
named Pyrrikhos, the other a king named Pyrrhus.

>>
Pyrrhic
1885, from Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who defeated Roman armies at Asculum, 280 B.C.E., but at such cost to his own troops that he was unable to follow up and attack Rome itself, and is said to have remarked, "one more such victory and we are lost."

pyrrhic
"dance in armor" (1597), also a type of metrical foot (1626), from L. pyrrhicha, from Gk. pyrrikhe orkhesis, the war-dance of ancient Greece, traditionally named for its inventor, Pyrrikhos. The name lit. means "reddish," from pyrros "flame-colored," from pyr "fire" (see pyre).
<<


~jwf~

Nice try!

But you're simply defining 'single-use' to suit your argument. The fact is that each of the 'adjectives' listed can be followed by by one or more nouns to produce distinct meanings, eg 'Freudian theory' is not the same as 'Freudian therapy' (okay, so that's *my* definition of single-use. )

Interesting argument

When I created the thread I was thinking about those adjectives which only describe one noun, and Rudest Elf has given many examples.

The effect, however, is to render the nouns they describe effectively superfluous. Where we have an exact synonym which can fit the adjective, this is still the case. If someone commits a 'heinous', then we all know what that means.

Verbs are interesting, too. Can one 'commit' a positive act?

Or, as Billy Connolly (I think) asked, "why is oral sex always 'performed'?"