This will annoy you

[davidn]

Bear with me a moment - are there any commonly-used pairs of nouns where the first noun is used as an adjective or descriptor for the second, where that second word can equally be used as an adjective for the first?

Yes, I know, this needs an example - I was just walking upstairs with one of the mountains of junk that tend to accumulate on my desk, and I saw "Oyster mushrooms" on an unusually comprehensible supermarket receipt. I misread it as "Mushroom oysters" at first and wondered when we had become posh enough gits to have those in our shopping, but after looking again, I wondered if such a thing as a mushroom oyster existed (they don't) and whether there were any of these word pairs that made sense either way around.

Apparently there is such a thing as a "cloud mushroom", sort of, but its actual name is one of the least appetizing things ever, so that barely misses out.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I want to say "egg drops" but I guess "dropped eggs" doesn't really count.

My next example was going to be "head crabs" and "crab heads", but my first question was going to be, are there notability criteria for the flipped pair -- you could technically talk about crab heads, but nobody actually does. Then I realised that crabs don't even have heads, and they barely have faces, and oh my god look at this thing (http://kottke.org/07/10/giant-coconut-crab) (note: don't look at that thing.) I guess my question about notability stands for future submissions, though?

[davidn]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA But that's a good question... I suppose I was thinking of actual specific... things ("tree frog", "garlic mushroom") that have actual names that are two nouns, rather than something as incidental as that - though having found none myself, I think I'd be happy with an example that was just a body part, as long as it was an actual body part that existed on that species.

[kjorteo]

Salad garden/garden salad.

[davidn]

Perfect! 100 points to you. That's actually the most natural solution I've seen so far.

[kjorteo]

Also this one totally does too count, shut up.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

A wall stone is used to build a stone wall. Toilet water can be found in a water toilet (as opposed to a latrine). A Cart Horse can be used to pull a horse cart. Window glass can be used to make a glass window and you pay a bridge toll on a toll bridge.

However, you can't use a stone key on a key stone, nor can you use an eye glass with a glass eye. A lip hair is less common than a hair lip. Although you can have wall paper, it is different to a paper wall like in Japan.

There were ones that I thought more grey areas like a shear pin being broken by pin shear. Or a few others that were adjectives used as nouns (not sure if Toll bridge is such a one).

There is also a very common one that I am not sure about. Art Gallery which has Gallery Art in it. Is Art a noun in this context?

My favourite one is a Lightning Bolt or a Lightning Fork as individuals but Bolt Lightning or Fork Lightning.

I bet you probably worked out that I would attempt to come up with some of them. Some are cheating though as I think an eyeglass is one word and probably the same for a carthorse.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

And apparently my office mate just said what about a Flush Toilet and a Toilet Flush, although that may be the same as an adjective getting used as a noun rather than a noun getting used as an adjective.

[davidn]

I should have known that you would be very good at this - you have that kind of brain suited for wordplay :) All of those are pretty legitimate to greater or lesser extents - the 'horse cart' one is notable for being two things that are directly related that have that word pairing, and most of the good ones I've seen are objects that aren't actually very separate from each other (like Pencil Lead/Lead Pencil, and Box Kite/Kite Box - though I'm still checking that last one).

[kibet.livejournal.com]

I am sure there are lots involving water, stone and glass as they are often used as descriptives, or at least that was my method. Often though it was what I saw around the room.

Well I didn't put in the pure wordplay one which was 'a computer's monitor allows you to moniter computer's activities'

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that the only thing that I can think of - not even an example that works - is 'honey badger'? Internet, you have ruined me.

D.F.

[drake [begriffli.ch] (from livejournal.com)]

Hopefully not via this mechanism specifically (http://xkcd.com/856/).

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Hah, fortunately not! :P

D.F.

[drake [begriffli.ch] (from livejournal.com)]

You realize your choice of username may make one suspicious of such a declaration. o.o (Though it'd be even more convenient if the other part used the present participle instead of the indicative.)

[davidn]

You might as well say that my name means that my parents might have suffered from this...!