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There are nearly half a million compound phrases that aren’t in any dictionary—simply because they contain spaces. “Boiling water.” “Saturday night.” “Help me.” I would hope that none of those examples were taking up space in a dictionary.
It's quite interesting that "boiling water" in many Slavic languages is actually a separate word (and not derived from "water", but from "boiling"; similar how the author mentions "ice" being used instead of "frozen water").
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Can you say more on this?
Consider phrasal verbs like "shut up", "get lost" or "kick off". Knowing what the parts mean doesn't let you understand the whole. In your native tongue you take these for granted, but in a second language you have to learn that the sum is more (or different) than the parts.
So the issue is just that this is figurative language, and you have to know that a kickoff is the beginning of certain sports, for example. It's more of a cultural issue than something a dictionary needs to fix.
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Freezing water doesn't have a word, it only gets one after water has changed phase. Boiling water also gets a word once it has changed phase: steam. ice - water - steam
Steam is liquid water droplets suspended in gas; water in the gas phase is “water vapor” which also doesn't have a single word. This is also an interesting case because “vapor” without a qualifier also refers to a suspension of solid or liquid particles in gas (of which “steam” is a particular example).
We act as if some languages have "compound words" that can encompass entire sentences (subject & object attaching to the verb as prefixes or suffixes) while others don't form compounds, and most are somewhere in between. But these are all statements about lexicographic conventions and say nothing about the languages. In reality all languages are muddles sprawling across a multidimensional continuum, and they abso-frigging-lutely do n't sit neatly in such pigeonholes.
“Hospital bills”. That’s very country specific. Also, that’s two words.
Some cases are basically impossible "Crash blossoms" you don't stand any chance without knowing why we call them that
Some are middling difficult, "Home Secretary" requires that you know every meaning for the two words and then you happen to pick the correct obscure meaning, a "Secretary" could be in charge, and "Home" could mean the entire country as distinct from everywhere else.
But "Hospital bills" doesn't seem even marginally difficult
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The rest of the article did a good job explaining that. I just think those were terrible examples for the introduction. I think "shut up", "good night", and "hot dog" would have really got the point across better, but those might already be in dictionaries.
'hot dog' belongs in a thesaurus, not a dictionary. It's just a type of sausage.
> Got a word Didn’t > frozen water → ice boiling water Freezing water doesn’t have a word. Boiled water does have a word.
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Some are better than others. Many semi-transparents could get legit coverage. And many are good fodder for word game content.
The rest of the article did a good job explaining that. I just think those were terrible examples for the introduction. I think "shut up", "good night", and "hot dog" would have really got the point across better, but those might already be in dictionaries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Freezing water doesn't have a word, it only gets one after water has changed phase. Boiling water also gets a word once it has changed phase: steam. ice - water - steam
Steam is liquid water droplets suspended in gas; water in the gas phase is “water vapor” which also doesn't have a single word. This is also an interesting case because “vapor” without a qualifier also refers to a suspension of solid or liquid particles in gas (of which “steam” is a particular example).
And there's effectively no other gas in the steam, because dissolved air in the boiler's feedwater (particularly oxygen and carbon dioxide) has to be removed to prevent corrosion. To that end, water going into the boiler is first run through a deaerator, to remove any air that dissolved in the water as it came through the condensor.