A lot of my colleagues have been giving birth lately, and the announcements always talk about the arrival of a bouncing baby boy or girl. I could understand squirming. And I really doubt they throw the baby down to test for bounceability. So what's up with that?

Maybe it's a concise way of putting - "A baby that makes us bounce with happiness"

On a lexical note, bouncing means healthy and lively. "A bouncing baby" could be a cliche but goes well with babies anyway. Any other word simply lacks the bounce.

That makes me wonder if there is a word for foetal movements inside the womb...

I'd agree with raju on the bouncing = healthy and lively. It's like when you say you have a bounce in your step.

Foetal movements...reminds me of when I was pregnant, watching the baby move inside my (very big) belly reminded me of when a snake eats a mouse. I thought it was funny so I mentioned that to my then-husband, who was so disgusted, he never touched me again.

is it maybe just alliterative? better than say, bumbling? or blasting? or...

A newborn feels like a rubber doll that would (absit omen)
bounce if dropped.

That makes me wonder if there is a word for foetal movements inside the womb...

Treading water?

reminded me of when a snake eats a mouse Ohmigawd, bel, only you could come up with that! I do see what you mean, though--the movements can be rather sinuous.

I don't know if there is a name for movements specific to a fetus, but having had 2 babies, I can attest that one was a roller (girl) and the other a puncher (boy).


Good question, Boronia; oh, and don't drink the water! (Unless you're ready to have a kid, of course.)

Etymology of muscle is "little mouse".

is it maybe just alliterative? In evidence of this hypothesis: I know of no corresponding epithet (translating as "bouncing") in German or French.

The OED, 1st print ed., gives the following for bouncing: "That bounces; in various senses of the verb relating alike to loudness, brag, and vigorous or ungainly movement. Often also (like thumping, whacking, whopping, strapping, and other words meaning vigorous, striking) used with the sense of big rather than elegant or graceful." A couple of few citations use the adjective with some wenches. a priest, and a puppy. Here's: "His mother ... lay down her burthen at Elmeby, where this bouncing babe Bonner was born." 1662. Thomas Jefferson is quoted in re a bouncing letter. I'll admit that "bouncing baby (boy)" has a nice alliterative effect to it, too. But I think it was applied to babies at a time in the past when healthy a robust indicated a better chance of survival. There was also animated short about a baby Gerald McBoing-Boing in the early '50s for the rubber baby buggy bumper kinda bounce.

http://www.toonopedia.com/gerald.htm

rubber baby buggy bumper kinda bounce.

What???? [confused-e]

Don' ask!

rubber baby buggy bumper kinda bounce.
What???? [confused-e]

It's a tongue twister. I think I first heard it in a Warner Brother's cartoon or a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode. It's a good example of the ambiguity of compunds: e.g., "ancient history teacher" is it the teacher that is ancient or the history? I assume the compound breaks down as

[rubber [[baby buggy] bumpers]]

Hyphens almost always resolve the ambiguity.

Hyphens almost always resolve the ambiguity.

But that would be wrong. Ancient History, the noun and discipline, is not hyphenated, not even when it qualifies another noun. You might argue that you should use a comma in the less flattering case: the ancient, history teacher. And you could always arrange the constituent words differently, e.g., the rubber bumpers on that baby buggy, but that ruins the effect. And besides, when speaking nobody can hear your hyphens. You could use pauses. Less commas than ellipses. But seriously, ambiguity of this kind runs rampant throughout language. If it's not obvious from the context, restatement and rearrangement usually fix things.

"Carelessness, or perhaps a laudable desire to economize in hyphens, sometimes leads to the omission of one where it is manifestly a case of all or none. ... Some pretty problems in hyphening are set by the unpleasant modern habit of forgetting the existence of prepositions and using a long string of words as a sort of adjectival sea serpent... Those who like writing in this way can be left to solve their problems for themselves. Indeed, many of our difficulties with hyphens are of our own making; we can avoid them by remembering prepositions ..."

H.W. Fowler, Modern English Usage, 2d ed., Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 257.

Oy, where would you stick a hyphen in either of the two phrases I used in this thread to illustrate ambiguity? For your convenience, here they are again:

rubber baby buggy bumpers
ancient history teacher

I say only a misguided hyperhyphenated prescriptivist would insist on hyphens in either of these two noun phrases. And he would be wrong, too. BTW, one of the prhases is from Saroyan's Human Comedy and the other is a near-folk saying.

And if you're going to quote Fowler's chapter and verse, at least be kind enough to use the first & preferred edition.

rubber baby-buggy bumpers
ancient-history teacher
but
Ancient History teacher

See AHD usage panel on compound adjectives:

http://www.bartleby.com/64/84.html

But AnnaStrophic, what does "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" mean?

a rubber bumper on a baby buggy
or
the bumper of a rubber baby buggy made

And neither of your ancient history teacher phrases means a history teacher who is ancient.

When I read it, "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" very clearly means the bumpers on the baby bugger are made of rubber.

Ancient-history teacher means a teacher of ancient history.

Now if you want to say the teacher is ancient, well, yer up a crick without a padle if you write it that way. You'll have to change your phrase around. Or use "aged"

When I read it, "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" very clearly means the bumpers on the baby bugger are made of rubber.

Ah, but it's not how the phrase is put together, but what (you assume) it means. In my original, unhyphenated phrase, there's also the meaning that the bumpers are for a buggy made for rubber babies. It's not the structure or the semantics, but some other kind of real-world knowledge (about babies, buggies, and bumpers) that clues you in on the meaning.

How about "the book on the table under the lamp"? I could mean that the book (which I want to draw your attention to) is on the table under the lamp, as opposed to the table under the skylight. Or that the book is the one of the ones on the table, but particularly the book under the lamp, and not the one next to the jar of marmalade. No hyphen or comma or what-have-you will help you there.

No argument there, jheem. I'm beginning to think we're talking about two different things, but I'm not quite sure what to call them.

I was just trying to demonstrate that things which many take to be simple open and shut cases vis-a-vis language, are usually more difficult once one looks more carefully at the evidence. I, for one, use hyphens and punctuate my sentences, but occasionally somebody says something that send me off down the garden path, which, BTW, is what sentences like "The horse raced by the barn fell" are called in the literature.

viz. http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~kbarker/garden-path.html

I would say "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" but that is only me.

I would say "teacher of Ancient history" because I tend to listen to Fowler.

I have been listening to Sir Ernest Gowers' revised edition of Fowler (not the first edition) since I was graduated from high school ... and I ain't changing editions, no matter what anybody "prefers".

I have been listening to Sir Ernest Gowers' revised edition of Fowler (not the first edition) since I was graduated from high school ... and I ain't changing editions, no matter what anybody "prefers".

Bravo. Good for you! Never trust any kind of grammarian or grammar. Now, I've usually had to read books, but I'm glad they speak to you. And it's entirely up to you whether you listen or not. But here's my deal: just don't tell me what's right by quoting Fowler-Gowers ipse dixit, ad verecundiam, or any way else, and I won't tell you when not to use "ain't" or how many iotas there are in homo(i)ousios.

There are some who pooh-pooh both Fowler's first and Gower's second editions.

"The chaos prevailing among writers or printers or both regarding the use of hyphens is discreditable to English education. Since it sufficiently proves by its existence that neither the importance of proper hyphenating nor the way to act about it is commonly known." H W Fowler Modern English Usage, 1st edition, 1926.

simple open and shut cases

I would write "open-and-shut cases"

Alas, jheem, I'm all too familiar with garden-path sentences. They're the bane of headline writers.

I would write "open-and-shut cases"

Yes, it should've been hyphenated if both of us were getting paid to post here. You have brought up and excellent example though. The hyphens do nothing in your version. Not a thing! They're just there to fulfill some silly rule. The hyphen in "rubber baby-buggy bumper" does help slightly. But since both phrases are pretty much frozen, I don't think that the hyphen(s) would do much. And if you haven't seen this quiz yet, take it ...

http://quizilla.com/users/BaalObsidian/quizzes/How grammatically sound are you?/

"The horse raced by the barn fell"

What are you saying here?

What are you saying here?

There was a horse, sombody raced it by the barn, and as it did so it fell. As AnnaStrophic said earlier it's the bane of headline writers. They've also given us the comma qua conjunction: "Smith, Jones Attack Each Other". You can see many more examples of garden path sentences at the URL I cited earlier in this thread.

AnnaStrophic wrote: "Hyphens almost always resolve the ambiguity."

jheem responded: "But that would be wrong."

I quoted Fowler, albeit the disparaged second edition.

jheem responded: "...just don't tell me what's right ..."

There remain several bits of the new rule which are unresolved. I understand that jheem may say what is wrong and that I may not say what is right, but may jheem say what is right and am I still free to say what is wrong?

You are free to say anything you like F.S. This is a place for open discussion. People don't always agree, but we have to be able to speak up.

Everybody quotes from their own personal base of knowledge. When it comes down to quoting one reference book against another, then who is to say what is right or wrong. It is then up to each person to decide which one they will follow.

But again, each one of us has a right to voice his opinion.

Sure, Padre, you can say what is right and what is wrong, but I don't have to believe you or heed you. I, too, am free to say what is right and what is wrong, and you, too, are free to ignore me. Got that? Good.

I said that hyphens would not resolve the ambiguity which I pointed out earlier in this thread. They won't you know and quoting me out of context doesn't help your case. Quoting Fowler didn't help either. But let me repeat myself: hyphens will not resolve any of the ambiguities I pointed out in the two phrases earlier in this thread. Capisce? Bene.

I own both the first and the second editions of Fowlers. I like the first one better on account of its style. You like the second better because that's what you were exposed to at high school. Many disparage the second for reasons other than its style. I am not one of those critics. In another thread on AWADtalk, ipse dixit and argumentum ad verecundiam were brought up, and I thought I'd just take a little verbal jab at you and Fowler being hyphen authorities to be heeded. Sorry it went awry. I apologize to you and everybody here for any bruised feelings that I may have caused.

But let me repeat myself: hyphens will not resolve any of the ambiguities I pointed out in the two phrases earlier in this thread.

Why not though?

Say you add a hyphen between baby and buggy in rubber baby-buggy bumpers does not "baby-buggy" then become the modifier of bumpers.

I'm not sure if modifier is the right term, there are those much more knowledgeable than I in terminology, but it is like when you say, an "all-out war", a second-hand book, a drawn-out speech...the hyphenated words elaborate on the final noun.

Wouldn’t that clear up the ambiguity? What am I not understanding?

It's not enough for me, but then that's my problem. So, compare the following:

1a. rubber baby-buggy bumpers
1b. adj - noun - noun - noun
2a. American rock star shenanigans
2b. adj - noun - noun - noun

In (1a) rubber modifies bumpers, but in (2a) American modifies rock star. Why? How? Will hyphens help? I think the use or abuse of hypens is as idiomatic as nominal compounds.

Let's just drop it, and agree to disagree.

Why does American modify rock star? I read it as modifying shenanigans, i.e., the shenanigans in America of one or more rock stars of unspecified nationality.

Bingley

a word for foetal movements inside the womb...
>>gestaculation?

gestaculation raju, come here a minute--I have something for you...

jheem, I think you're right in saying hyphenating is idiomatic. I tend to have my own system (though it seems more like a non-system!) of doing it. In your second example, it would never have occurred to me that American might modify shenanigans.

I think, in the case of these garden-path sentences (and, thank you--I like that term), that we're just going to have to take them on a case-by-case status, dealing with some "as is". The rewrite above sounded okay, but others would be bordering into the ridiculousness of that statement by Churchill: the Something, up with which I will not put.

I feel we are in danger of slopping the definition of garden path sentences over into areas where it doesn't belong. Things like my fave, 'British Left Waffles on Falklands' are not garden path sentences, just sentences that can be humorously, if sometimes torturously, misinterpreted. A garden path sentence is one that you think you are following quite nicely until you get toward the end and find it suddenly seems to mean nothing at all. This, as in the case of the horse raced past the barn, is generally because you have been given a perfectly reasonable and grammatical structure that just doesn't happen to fit the final sentence. Usually this is to be resolved by restructuring the sentence, a luxury not always available to deadline threatened headline writers.

Churchill: the Something, up with which I will not put.
A quote from a cable Churchill sent to his publisher when the publisher admonished the Great Man about his ending sentences with prepositions. The Churchill answer was "That is a pedantry up with which I will not put." The cable, I was told, was framed and hung in the publisher's office.
Hyphens : The A.P. Stylebook, which aims at making English clear and precise, says: "Hyphens are joiners. Use them to avoid ambiguity or to form a single idea from two or more words. Use a hyphen whenever ambiguity would result if it were omitted. The president will speak to small-businessmen. (Businessmen is normally one word But the president will speak to small businessmen) is unclear."
The A.P. goes on for 8 1/2, single-spaced inches regarding the use of hyphens in : compound modifiers, two-thought compounds, compound proper names and adjectives, prefixes and suffixes, avoid duplicated vowels and triple consonants, with numerals and (finally) suspensive hyphenation, which I shall spare you.

the president will speak to small businessmen

This is a good example. You have to stretch to misinterpret this sentence. It might not be quite the stretch of some other examples ('rubber baby buggy bumpers' comes to mind) but it's still a stretch.

Well, that's my point. The ambiguity only comes without the context or back story. Because earlier in the article (which doesn't exist) we've been describing the differences between American and British rock stars, and its the shenanigans of the former that are being pointed out. Either way, I was trying to choose a third example to show that combinatorially compounds like this are ambiguous. We tend to think of one meaning as being the right one, but that has little to do with the structure of the compound or its constituent lexical items, but more to do with its usage, or context in some story or text.

Thanks, Jackie. As I just posted above. The strangeness of this kinds of constructions mainly comes from their being quoted out of context. If you listen to how people actually talk and read carefully how they write you see all kinds of ambiguity in their texts. People speaking usually catch these mistakes and rephrase their sentence to resolve the ambiguity, but sometimes not until others point it out.

Of course it's a stretch, but the possibility exists and is quite useful in jokes and riddles. It all started because some folks think there are language rules, which are simple, and which take care of all problems. There are rules to language, very few of which are simple, and most of which have little to do with the grammar rules we were taught in school.

The ambiguity only comes without the context or back story

Which is where headlines run into problems. Often they come without the requisite context. An example of this might be:

Starr Asked to Delay Report.

The normal reading of this, knowing that it was a headline in a newspaper, would be, following standard headline syntax conventions, and knowing the context of the investigation into the Clinton involvement in suspect dealing of the Whitewater Development Corporation, that independent counsel, Kenneth Starr was asked if he would delay the release of his report on the Whitewater matter. Reading the article we found that Starr himself was doing the asking.

Thanks, Faldage. Yes, and I mentioned garden path sentences as an aside. Of course, I now wish that I hadn't mentioned any of it, but that's life.

the possibility exists and is quite useful in jokes and riddles

Useful in jokes and riddles is one thing, I just refuse to take it seriously as a grammatical, or even syntactical problem.

Yes, but the reading of the story just helps the reader to resolve the ambiguity. It does not get rid of its existence or the possibility of its misnterpretation. And I am not saying that I'm against clear writing. In fact at this point I'm not saying much of anything. Just backpeddling. All I was trying to say, and I admit I did it poorly, is that things are more complicated than imagined and that sometimes a hyphen might not be the solution. I mentioned commas as another possibility. Rewriting might work, too.

to wit (this I serendipitously saw today):

"Defendant not to blame judge told"

I just refuse to take it seriously as a grammatical, or even syntactical problem.

Well, it is a problem in natural language processing (NLP) and quite a serious one, especially for the humorless generative grammarians. Not saying it won't be solved, but perhaps not in the ways being attempted nowadays.

eh no, jheem, I'm glad you brought it up. The thread has been interesting and educational.

Some confusuion in headlines ("heds" in the news jargon) is that Editors know that short verbs are implied (is, be, was, etc.)
So to an Editor the hed reads Starr is Asked to Delay Report. The problem arises when you're too literal when reading heds.
All very confusing, n'est ce pas?

I think the main problem here is that we don't use the past tense in headlines, unless it's specifically required.

Starr is Asked to Delay Report

And I believe that most newspaper readers are aware, at least unconciously, of this convention and, as the lovely AnnaS noted, the non-use of the past tense, which means that what appears to be past tense is normally the passive. Unfortunately, following these conventions leads to the misinterpretation of the headline, since the article stated that Starr was doing the asking. The headline should have read:

Starr Asks to Delay Report

I just got back after a couple days away. Thanks for the bouncing answers, and even greater thanks for the discussion that followed. Fascinating!

Not to belabour the matter, but back to those famous rubber baby buggy bumpers for just a sec. I know the babies aren't rubber. Not sure if this got pointed out, but it's possible that either the bumpers alone are made of rubber, or the entire buggies are. I think that is the ambiguity (even with a basic understanding of babies, buggies and bumpers) that is hard to correct with hyphens.

it's possible that either the bumpers alone are made of rubber, or the entire buggies are.

Good point. In that light we note that rubber baby-buggy bumpers is ambiguous unless you assume that, if it were only the bumpers that were rubber, then double hyphenization would be required, giving us rubber baby-buggy-bumpers.

Personally, I think that hyphenization is the signpost to the slippery-slope of compound word making, as in the 20th century slide from base ball through the unstable transitional form base-ball to baseball.

Starr Asks To Delay Report

Starr Asked To Delay Report

Surely the first one implies that it is still possible that Starr's request will be granted, while the second one implies that it is no longer possible (perhaps because the report has already been published).

Bingley

the second one implies that it is no longer possible

I don't see the implications you suggest, simply because the syntax of headlines doesn't indicate that Starr was doing the asking in the latter form. Maybe that's strictly an USn convention, but.

Although probably not misleading for the target audience:

Intel Misses 1Q Earnings Forecast By A Penny

Anyone care to speculate on how big that penny was?

that looks like a U.S. American type penny; i.e., one tenth of a dime..

as these things go, this probly caused the value of Intel stock to fall millions of dollar-bucks that day in the resulting sell-off.

OK, lemme put it this way. If the 1Q Earnings Forecast was $20 million, what was the real 1Q earnings?

can't know that w/o you know how many outstanding shares there are, as the "penny" is in $/share.

the "penny" is in $/share

Exactamenticals.

Or as I said when I posed the question:

probably not misleading for the target audience

Starr Asks To Delay Report

Starr Asked To Delay Report

Well now you are getting into the realm of making the hed fit exactly into the space available and in the type size wanted.
The general rule is that largest heds go at the top of the page on the "lead stories," decreasing in size as you move down. Oh, on second thought I'm not going into all that.

The life of a subeditor is a dreary one. IMHO, of course!

Me: Starr Asks To Delay Report

Starr Asked To Delay Report

Surely the first one implies that it is still possible that Starr's request will be granted, while the second one implies that it is no longer possible (perhaps because the report has already been published).

Faldage: I don't see the implications you suggest, simply because the syntax of headlines doesn't indicate that Starr was doing the asking in the latter form. Maybe that's strictly an USn convention, but.

Ok, suppose something comes to light now about something that happened quite a while ago. If for example it was only just discovered today that Starr had asked to delay the report in the mid-90s, how would you construct a headline?

This comes up tolerably often in the UK where certain documents, for example cabinet minutes, are only released to the public after 30 years. So we only get to find out about some things 30 years later, when even in a headline the present simple tense is obviously inappropriate.

Bingley

suppose something comes to light now about something that happened quite a while ago. If for example it was only just discovered today that Starr had asked to delay the report in the mid-90s, how would you construct a headline?

New Findings Re Starr Report

Well, OK - but it is so indefinite as to be virtually meaningless within its own conntext.
How about
Starr's request delayed Report
???

The point of a headline is to get you to read an article. It doesn't have to tell you much about what's in the article but what it does tell you shouldn't be misleading.

If something new came up today about a news item from the '90s, just the fact that there was something new should be enough for a headline.

True - but it dodges the issue raised above. At least mine does attempt to provide an answer to how to make a particular point wothout ambiguity (at least, that's what I fondly hope it does, until some smart-arse tells me different! Don't worry peoples - my shoulders are broad.)

to provide an answer to how to make a particular point without ambiguity

A) I wasn't being particularly facetious. I think if the issue comes up ten years later all the hed need do is point out that there was something new.

2) I think your wording, even in the context of the original time frame, still mistates the issue. It wasn't his request that delayed the report, his request was that he be allowed to delay the report.

Personally I would go with Starr Asks to Delay Report for the contemporaneous hed, if that passes muster with those who know the carved-in-stone rules of hed writing and my New Findings Re Starr Report for the present-day revisiting, remembering that we have space restrictions to consider in any of these.

The very fact that you are able to state, unequivocally (and correctly) that I have mis-stated the issue shows, I think, that my hed is, at least, unambiguous. I had forgotten exactly which was the correct fact.
So, it should have been
Starr requested report's delay ,
which is just as unambiguous and, I have to say, takes less room than your contribution.

FWIW, I completely agree with you that your hed would arouse interest in those who would be interested. But IMAO, that isn't what we were trying to do - we jes wanna hed that gives specific information without misunderstanding.

- and I didn't for a moment think you were being faceitious, my dear fellow.