Why English language is sometimes "lazy", sometimes not
(non-native speaker)
Is there a reason why the English language has "special" words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?
And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.
You are viewing a single comment
If everyone in a town has a house, could you say that town is homelessnessless?
Has. The word is legit, but it would be an adjective because of the last -less there, so:
You could convert it back into a noun, through zero derivation; for example "homeless" is an adjective too, but people can say "the homeless are hungry", as if it was a noun. But it sounds weird in this situation, I don't know why.
So, you are saying I should ask my representatives to focus more on achieving homelessnesslessness?