Adjectives being used as nouns
October 29th, 2007I have been absent from the Blog for a couple of weeks. My excuse is a holiday in New Zealand and a walk in the wild.
This last sentence gives me a lead into this blog. “A walk into the wild”. You will understand the gist of that sentence but for those who are pedantic, “Wild” what? Terrain? Hills? If I had written “wilderness” then it would have made more sense, but more and more you see people dropping the noun and simply using the adjective as the noun.
I encountered two examples of this on my way to the airport. The two rail stations for the airport are “International” and “Domestic”, not “International Terminal” and “Domestic Terminal”.
So, I have done a little research to come up with a few more examples. (See www.bartleby.com)
See if you have used any of the following in your conversation lately. If you collect something instead of saying “collectible objects” do you abbreviate to “collectibles”. Maybe you say the sick, instead of sick persons, or the homeless instead of “homeless persons”. How about “quarterlies” instead of “quarterly journals”
There are many more and if you can think of any I would love to hear about them.