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If I wanted people to understand that a werewolf hunter was a hunter that was a werewolf, but without that wording (hunter that was a werewolf is wordy), and without confusing someone else who might think a werewolf hunter is a hunter that hunts werewolves, how would I go about doing so?

How can I make terms like these less confusing?

Question kinda comes form here: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/76125/what-werewolf-hunter-uses-this-equipment-crossbow-and-hat#comment158894_76127

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yuritsuki
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  • With regard to your final question, the term 'Homonym' describes two words which sound the same, however have two different meanings. I believe the usage can also stretch to compound nouns such as 'werewolf hunter'. Within the spoken context, placing the primary stress on either 'werewolf' or 'hunter' will alter the intended meaning. – Cellobin22 Dec 19 '14 at 07:46
  • @EdwinAshworth, homonyms do not necessarily have to be spelt differently (the term "homonym" also encompasses the term "homograph", which addresses two words spelt the same). There is also an argument made by one of my old university lecturers that homonyms and polysemes are very similar in definition. The distinction depends on whether the comparison is of two different words or one word used in two different ways. I would agree with you that polysemy is probably more appropriate in this context. – Cellobin22 Dec 19 '14 at 09:18
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    @Guarin42 I'll correct myself. Always dangerous answering when unwell. From Wikipedia: 'In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings.' I'd add 'and etymologies': convergent evolution. Polysemes are different senses of the same word. Divergence. Obviously, there is a single word 'werewolf' here with different attributive senses (of or by): we're talking polysemy. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '14 at 09:26
  • Whilst not addressing attributive noun usage per se, Zeki Hamawand's chapter on Adjective Compounds in his work 'Morphology in English: Word Formation in Cognitive Grammar' classifies compound adjectives according to ... – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '14 at 09:43
  • the types of semantic relationships between the parts (eg goal / feature / cause). This would at least give a template for a similar classification of attributive nouns. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '14 at 09:44
  • I've been struggling to come up with the classic case of an ambiguous attributive usage; I was 75% sure there was one. It's 'English teacher' etc. In context, the ambiguity would be resolved. Even in spoken English, stress patterns would disambiguate without further context. However, 'werewolf hunter' is such an unusual coupling anyway (and must surely connote the big game hunter sense) that a work-around is almost certainly necessary. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '14 at 09:59
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    Why not label him as a hunter werewolf or hunting werewolf? That would be jarring enough to prevent the assumption, but concise and correct. – anongoodnurse Dec 19 '14 at 11:05
  • If 'hunter' is a title given to members of the pack of werewolves, you might be able to capitalize it to set it off (ie, 'werewolf Hunter') ... but I don't know if that would reliably transfer the meaning intended. – Joe Dec 19 '14 at 12:55
  • @EdwinAshworth So the term is called polysemy when a word can have double meanings depending on the context, correct? http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/215886/is-there-a-name-for-a-pair-of-words-or-phrase-that-can-have-a-double-meaning – yuritsuki Dec 19 '14 at 17:49
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    Most words – in fact, when you analyse extremely carefully, all words (understanding being subjective) – exhibit polysemy. In a dictionary, homonyms are given as separate headwords, and major polysemes as different senses under a single headword. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '14 at 17:55

6 Answers6

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As Mark Thompson explains in his excellent answer, werewolf hunter is a hunter of werewolves. I won't reproduce that.

However, it's possible to reverse the meaning by reversing the words and making hunter into what is functionally an adjective (an attributive noun): a hunter werewolf is a werewolf who is a hunter.

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Andrew Leach
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Using "hunter" as your noun is what's going to cause the trouble, as placing a noun before hunter usually implies it is the object of the hunt (e.g. "crocodile hunter", "big game hunter", "bargain hunter"). This rule is only relaxed in cases where that meaning is obviously unlikely and the opposite interpretation is the one more likely to make sense (e.g. "female hunter", "American hunter"). You're not going to be able to coerce the meaning of "werewolf" into being a likely participant in a hunt, so you'll have to search for an entirely different formulation.

This problem always exists to some degree when using the noun form of a transitive verb in English with a potential actor as its preceding adjective; the degree to which it is misinterpreted is entirely due to its common uses and context. For example, "race car driver" is unlikely to be a race car who is a driver, while "cattle drivers" is a reference to men who drive cattle, but could be used in a fantasy novel for a group of drivers who were cattle. I don't know if there is a formal term for this type of construction.

This therefore leads to possible solutions for your problem: use a formulation that does not include the noun form of a transitive verb. Instead of "hunter", for example, you might use "detective" or "private eye", neither of which would cause confusion if preceded by "werewolf".

Mark Thompson
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  • Hmmm... I see I was being unclear. In order to use "participant in", I'd have to reverse "unlikely" to "likely". But doing so would have yielded a more easily understood sentence. Thanks for the suggestion; I'm not yet fully familiar with this software, but if I can edit the post I'll do so. – Mark Thompson Dec 19 '14 at 09:26
  • The only problem with the last paragraph is the option of swapping out "hunter" for "detective" or "PI", which doesn't sound as right with Werewolf in front of it? – yuritsuki Dec 19 '14 at 17:50
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Hunter-werewolf is not ambiguous. It means a werewolf that hunts, although it could suggest that not all werewolves hunt.

But werewolf-hunter sounds to me to mean only a hunter of werewolves. Just like a lion-tamer is a tamer of lions, not a lion that tames. But a tamer-lion is a lion that tames. In distinction to 'a tamer lion', of course.

pazzo
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  • That's awful. Worth an upvote. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '14 at 19:54
  • i agree with this, but i think the hyphen looks weird. "It was a hunter werewolf" looks much more "correct" to me than "It was a hunter-werewolf". the hyphen (to me at least) sort of implies the creature is half hunter, half werewolf rather than a werewolf who hunts. – user428517 Dec 19 '14 at 20:04
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Use parentheses (or a delimiter) to introduce material(the race) serving to clarify the class:

hunter(werewolf)

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Maybe use an adjective before "hunter": During the time he was transformed into a werewolf, the lupine hunter was only vaguely aware of his nocturnal escapades.

Oldbag
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To remove the possibility of misinterpreting this ambiguous term, I would join together werewolf and hunter with a hyphen: werewolf-hunter.

In speech, the way that emphasis and tone of voice are used will disambiguate the term.

Erik Kowal
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