I never thought about it until I ran across the archaic term "cutpurse," but there's a type of compound word that puts the verb first, followed by subject. The really odd thing is that the only examples I can think of all describe riff-raff of some sort. Is there a name for this? Are there other examples? Is the sinister connection merely a chance coincidence?

"rapscallions"
but I wonder

An interesting point about their being low-life; the two examples I can think of offhand confirm it: marplot and makebate.

The surnames Shakespeare, Wagstaff, and Drinkwater are of this form too. The last has a direct counterpart in French: Boileau. Now I've read somewhere that Shakespeare and Wagstaff are naughty in origin: they're not simple profession surnames meaning spearman or beadle, they're nicknames for someone notorious for waggling his bits. I can't say whether this is true.

Tolkien invented (or possibly revived from obscurity) some of these for hobbit surnames, such as Bracegirdle. In fact, knowing Tolkien, it's highly likely that there were real Bracegirdles in Merry England.

I don't know of a name for this verb + object formation, but I'd be interested in hearing of it.

Bracegirdle is a real English country (Arrr, but the arrrnswer really loies in the soil) name. I have met someone called Bracegirdle, although I can't remember where. I googled it and there are references back to the 17th century at least.

makeweight - slightly pejorative
answerphone - or is answer a noun in this context? probably even more pejorative when applied to a person!


Rod Ward

there's a whole list of them at http://www.bugbear.com/bugbear/cutpurse.html, but no clues are offered as to a name for this phenomenon.

Wow, love that list. And it does seem that a larger that chance percentage refer to some type of cheat or lowlife. Maybe it at some period this was a type of slang used by or about that group, some words of which survive to this day.

BTW, it really was at 3:00 am that I realized that the noun was an object, not subject, and then I felt really embarrassed. Thanks for not jumping around and pointiing it out. You folks are really postkinds.