Noun Modifiers

Noun Acting as an Adjective

Ironically, another word often acts as a modifier of nouns. The noun itself often modifies another noun.

Our language overflows with noun modifiers:

football game hotdog bun chair legs

Indeed, the list seems endless. These words do an excellent job of saying just what we want to say:

We will watch the football game.

We do not have to say,

We will watch the game of football.

These days, however, many writers overdo it and come up with long chains of nouns. In the military we might encounter a long chain of nouns: the Missile Reentry Control Surveillance Management System Team, or some such gibberish. We reviewed the problem of noun chains earlier in the section on nouns.

 

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