Lmst

@hugovk !! I'll add it to the list! I've found 2 modern nonce examples describing this tool with animal variants: scare-shark and scare-elephant, and then the historical variants of fray-boggard, fray-bug, flay-crake, gally-beggar, scare-beggar, gally-crow, fear-crow. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching

CLIPPY IS A NICKNAME?! The formal name of the Word assistant is CLIPPIT. Welcome to the clan, friend. #CutthroatCompounds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant

SCARE-GNOME (2024) https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-fpoRUxD53/ is one of many SCARECROW (1553) nonce variants: SCARE-BULLFINCH (1772), SCARE-GOBLIN (2015), SCARE-ELEPHANT (2017), SCARE-SHARK (2021). (But there are also many #CutthroatCompounds that scare that are not SCARECROW related).

An excerpt of an Excel spreadsheet of cutthroat compounds with fear-, gally-, and scare- cutthroats shown. About 25 total.

Somebody at the North Florida Wildlife Center knows how to rebracket endocentric compounds into #CutthroatCompounds… 🥰🥰🥰

A ticket page for an event called “Love Birds at the Wildlife Center” with the description “Calling all lovebirds and those who love birds!”

Thank goodness I watched today's new #GiveItToMeStraight interview - Maddy Morphosis gave Bumpits to Chrissy Chlapecka at the end. I have now added BUMPIT (2008) to my list of #CutthroatCompounds. It's not in the OED. https://youtu.be/vFdQEpYegYY?si=OXBIlcfm8rnL6Eci&t=3596 #AmResearching

I got a hot tip about a real-life cat named EATBUGS, and in trying to find a citation date for someone's pet, I found the 1985 cat fantasy novel Tailchaser's Song has a cat named Eatbugs, plus 20 other potential #CutthroatCompounds - Hangbelly, Quiverclaw, Fumblefoot, Hushpad, Pokesnout, Howlsong, Hissblood, Slitbelly, Snufflenose, Wavetail, Twitchnose, Snaremouse, Snagrat!!! https://tailchaserssong.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Characters #AmResearching

HINDERLOVE is not in the OED, but English: Past and Present credited it to "The Passionate Morrice" (1593) which is also on Google Books and has this quote: "It is a halting crack-halter; a hurtfull hinderloue, and best he shall be knowne by his stumpe foote." Seems like a nonce usage. Every search for "hinderloue" with a u point back to this one passage. It's the only cutthroat with HINDER as the verb that I have so far, it join 23 other H- verbs. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching 7/6

An excerpt from the story The Passionate Morris from a PDF on Google Books. The quote says ""It is a halting crack-halter; a hurtfull hinderloue, and best he shall be knowne by his stumpe foote."

An excerpt of my list of verbs I've looked up that might be in cutthroats. Left column exist, right columns are one's I've tried. There are 24 verbs starting with H used in cutthroats, the most commonly used ones are hang and hold.

BLUR-PAPER turns out to be in the OED, as a bad writer, a scribbler, so BLUR- is now a new verb on my list (along with 30 other B verbs), and it joins a family of bad writers: SPOIL-PAPER and WASTE-PAPER. I think I'll stop here for tonight. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching 6/6

The OED entry for blur-paper: A writer who merely blurs paper, a scribbler. And then a citation from 1603.

An excerpt from my list of looked up verbs - the left column are verbs starting with B that have been used in cutthroats (and how many cutthroats use them), the right column are verbs I have looked up in the OED to try to find if they've been used in cutthroats, but the OED isn't focused on slang, so those verbs might be used, just not recorded in the OED.

I can't Google anything useful for BLURPAPER or CHERISH-THIEVES (BlurPaper is also an image modifying app now), so I look CHERISH-THIEVES up on Google Books too, and find Rogue and Early Modern English Culture (2010) that says CHERISH is actually an adjectival form of CHARE, meaning it's a back-lane thief, not a cutthroat either. To the NOT REAL ONES tab with you as well. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching 5/?

An excerpt page from Rogues and Early Modern English Culture (2010) about how how people were encouraged to hunt petty brokers and cherish-thieves, but that cherish comes from chare, or back lane.

The English: Past and Present book also told me that RAKE-HELL was originally RAKEL in Chaucer, and not a cutthroat, but is has been interpreted that way, and has inspired other RAKE cutthroats (-JAKES, -KENNEL, -MOULD, -SHAME, & -STRAW) , so I think it stays on my list. Not originally made with the same morphology, but rebracketed to be one in the 1540s based on the idiom "to rake hell with a fine tooth comb," and influential. 4/? #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching

An excerpt from the book English: Past and Present that explains that rakehell first appeared in Chaucer as rakel, but that Cowper used it in the phrase rake-hell baronet and that he "must have plainly have regarded it as a belonging to this family of words."

SurnameDB told me that SHAKESBY is not a cutthroat, but a placename meaning Robbers Farm. Off to the NOT REAL ONES tab you go, little SHAKESBY. I always collect with a wide net, and curate later, when more examples are around to better establish patterns. 3/? #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching

Excerpt from my spreadsheet of cutthroat compounds from the "Not Real Ones" tab, where I put terms that were created differently, and are not exocentric verb-noun compounds.

Looked BLABTALE up on Google Books and found a PDF for English: Past and Present from 1903 with a big list of cutthroats - some I have and some I don't, like BLURPAPER CHERISHTHIEVES HATEGOOD HATEPEACE HINDERLOVE and WASTE-THRIFT. BLABTALE says its from Hacket, but I can't find the longer citation for what the heck Hacket is to actually date this term. OED doesn't have a lot of nonce slang, but I should check there anyway. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching 2/?

Excerpt from a 1903 book called English Past and Present from Google Books. Page 221 is a list of cutthroat compounds, starting with blabtale, and ending with spyfault - it concludes on the next page.

I thought SurnameDB.com was gone, but I ran into it yesterday looking up KAY DRINKWATER, so I tried finding dates for other surnames, got about 5 of 20, then got distracted by BLABTALE at the end of that list. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching 1/?

School picture of a person named Kay Drinkwater wearing glasses and a pink shirt, with the caption "When someone says they thirsty"

An excerpt of my list of cutthroat compounds - just ones that don't have dates, but say "surname" where date should. List ends with blabtale, which isn't a surname but doesn't have a date.

Hey Internet, do you know where this image of Homer Ownputer is from? I’m just finding it at meme compilations without a source. #CutthroatCompounds #AmResearching

Image of a balding older man in front of an old blue screen computer with the lower third title: Homer Ownputer, Owns Home Computer

#Introduction post:

My profession is #TechnicalEditing, my special interest is #HistoricalLinguistics. I deeply love #CompoundMorphology and #ReferenceWorks and I'm always hunting for new #CutthroatCompounds. I sing, I give talks, I do a lot of research.

I am a part of many wonderful organizations including #Wordnik, #OddSalon, #ACES, #DSNA, #ADS, and #NPL.

In 2023, I plan to read a lot of non-fiction books. #AmReading

#CutthroatCompounds

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