Definition and Examples of Compound Words in English

Definition and Examples of Compound Words in English In morphology, a compound word is made up of two or more words that express a single idea and function as a single word. The most common types of compound words in English are compound nouns (e.g., cheeseburger), compound adjectives (red-hot temper), and compound verbs (waterproof the deck). The rules for spelling compound words are not consistent. Some compound words are written as a single word (eyeglasses), some as two (or more) hyphenated words (brother-in-law), and some as two (or more) separate words (soccer stadium). Examples and Observations As the car pulled into the parking lot, Kenny Dennard whipped a snowball right at the windshield.(John Feinstein, Forevers Team. Villard, 1989)On Sunday afternoons in the summer, my grandfather and I enjoyed eating hot dogs at the ballpark.While we were waiting for our food, I played with my chopsticks. They make excellent drumsticks. I also told Dad all about this big baseball game we were going to play after school the next day.(Dan Greenburg, Zack Files 13: The Misfortune Cookie. Turtleback, 1998)He hid in a cave until the ship had left, only to find that his shipmates had taken pity on him, and left him a barrel of biscuits and a fire, which he kept alight for months. A year later a southbound ship stopped by.(Simon Winchester, Outposts. Penguin, 2003)A diary can take almost any form: written responses to a periodic e-mail reminder, a handwritten notebook, a narrated video, or photos with written commentary.(Kim Goodwin, Designing for the Digital Age. Wiley, 2009)In Aboriginal Au stralia all home building was do-it-yourself.(Tony Dingle, Necessity the Mother of Invention, or Do-It-Yourself. A History of European Housing in Australia, ed. by Patrick Troy. Cambridge University Press, 2000) I became a shop steward immediately and a trustee in 1936. . . . I became the locals secretary-treasurer in 1946.(Mary Callahan, quoted in Rocking the Boat: Union Womens Voices, 1915-1975. Rutgers University Press, 1996)On a hot day, nothing beats walking into a nice, cool, air-conditioned home. Unfortunately, running your air conditioner is expensive and eats up energy.(Eric Corey Freed, Green Building Remodeling For Dummies. Wiley, 2008)Heads of Compound WordsOne part of a compound word is usually clearly its head, in a general way able to represent the meaning of the whole compound. The heads of the various types of compound word are [in capital letters] in this list: bellBOY, spin-DRY, red HOT, inTO, and/OR. It can be seen that in English, the head of a compound word is always the last element, on the right-hand end. (This is not true of compound words in all languages, however.)(James R. Hurford, Grammar: A Students Guide. Cambridge University Press, 1994)Dividing Compound Word sIf you divide a compound word at the end of a line, place the hyphen between the elements of the compound (snow-mobile, not snowmo-bile).(Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell, The Concise Wadsworth Handbook, 2nd ed. Wadsworth, 2008) Metaphorical CompoundsMetaphors furnished with common household objects are figures of speech that we literally live with every day. Some of these comparisons are new, such as a couch potato, a phrase that compares lumpish watchers of television to lumpy potatoes: the longer couch potatoes sit, the deeper they put down their roots.(Richard Lederer, The Play of Words. Simon Schuster, 1990)Complex CompoundsIt is possible to form a compound from two words one of which is itself a compound. For example, we can combine the compound law degree with the word requirement to get the complex compound law degree requirement. This compound can in turn be combined with changes to get law degree requirement changes, and so on. . . . [T]he process is essentially unlimited.(Bruce Hayes. Introductory Phonology. Wiley, 2009)

An Introduction to the Dunning-Kruger Effect

An Introduction to the Dunning-Kruger Effect At one point or another, you’ve probably heard someone speak with confidence on a topic that they actually know almost nothing about. Psychologists have studied this topic, and they’ve suggested a somewhat surprising explanation, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect: when people don’t know much about a topic, they’re often actually unaware of the limits of their knowledge, and think they know more than they actually do. Below, we’ll review what the Dunning-Kruger effect is, discuss how it affects people’s behavior, and explore ways that people can become more knowledgeable and overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect. What is the Dunning-Kruger Effect? The Dunning-Kruger effect refers to the finding that people who are relatively unskilled or unknowledgeable in a particular subject sometimes have the tendency to overestimate their knowledge and abilities.   In a set of studies testing this effect, researchers Justin Kruger and David Dunning asked participants to complete tests of their skills in a particular domain (such as humor or logical reasoning).   Then, participants were asked to guess how well they had done on the test.   They found that participants tended to overestimate their abilities, and this effect was most pronounced among participants with the lowest scores on the test.   For example, in one study, participants were given a set of practice LSAT problems to complete. Participants who actually scored in the bottom 25% guessed that their score put them in the 62nd percentile of participants. Why Does the Dunning-Kruger Effect Happen? In an interview with Forbes, David Dunning explains that â€Å"the knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task.†Ã‚   In other words, if someone knows very little about a particular topic, they may not even know enough about the topic to realize that their knowledge is limited. Importantly, someone may be highly skilled in one area, but be susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect in another domain. This means that everyone can potentially be affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect: Dunning explains in an article for Pacific Standard that â€Å"it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all.†Ã‚   In other words, the Dunning-Kruger effect is something that can happen to anyone. What About People Who Actually Are Experts? If people who know quite little about a topic think they’re experts, what do experts think of themselves? When Dunning and Kruger conducted their studies, they also looked at people who were quite skilled at the tasks (those scoring in the top 25% of participants).   They found that these participants tended to have a more accurate view of their performance than participants in the bottom 25%, but they actually had a tendency  to underestimate how they did relative to other participants- although they typically guessed their performance was above average, they didn’t realize quite how well they had done. As a TED-Ed video explains, â€Å"Experts tend to be aware of just how knowledgeable they are. But they often make a different mistake: They assume that everyone else is knowledgeable too.† Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger Effect What can people do to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect?   A TED-Ed video on the Dunning-Kruger effect offers some advice: â€Å"keep learning.†Ã‚   In fact, in one of their famous studies, Dunning and Kruger had some of the participants take a logic test and then complete a short training on logical reasoning. After the training, the participants were asked to assess how they’d done on the previous test. The researchers found that the training made a difference: afterwards, the participants who scored in the bottom 25% lowered their estimate of how well they thought they had done on the preliminary test. In other words, one way to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect may be to learn more about a topic. However, when learning more about a topic, it’s important to make sure that we avoid confirmation bias, which is â€Å"the tendency to accept evidence that confirms our beliefs and to reject evidence that contradicts them.†Ã‚   As Dunning explains, overcoming the Dunning-Kruger effect can sometimes be a complicated process, especially if it forces us to realize that we were previously misinformed. His advice? He explains that â€Å"the trick is to be your own devil’s advocate: to think through how your favored conclusions might be misguided; to ask yourself how you might be wrong, or how things might turn out differently from what you expect.† The Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that we may not always know as much as we think we do- in some domains, we may not know enough about a topic to realize that we are unskilled. However, by challenging ourselves to learn more and by reading about opposing views, we can work to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect. References Dunning, D. (2014).   We are all confident idiots.   Pacific Standard.   https://psmag.com/social-justice/confident-idiots-92793 Hambrick, D.Z. (2016).   The psychology of the breathtakingly stupid mistake.   Scientific American Mind.   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-the-breathtakingly-stupid-mistake/ Kruger, J., Dunning, D. (1999).   Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing ones own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.   Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121-1134. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12688660_Unskilled_and_Unaware_of_It_How_Difficulties_in_Recognizing_Ones_Own_Incompetence_Lead_to_Inflated_Self-Assessments Lopez, G. (2017).   Why incompetent people often think they’re actually the best.   Vox.   https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/11/18/16670576/dunning-kruger-effect-video Murphy, M. (2017).   The Dunning-Kruger effect shows why some people think theyre great even when their work is terrible.   Forbes.   https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2017/01/24/the-dunning-kruger-effect-shows-why-some-people-think-theyre-great-even-when-their-work-is-terrible/#1ef2fc125d7c Wednesday Studio (Director) (2017).   Why incompetent people think they’re amazing.   TED-Ed.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?vpOLmD_WVY-E