Get to know your “no” nouns

August 27th, 2008 at 07:00am Barry Wood

Hyphens are much more common in adjectives than in nouns. Typical examples can be found in the “no” words: “no-cal” beverage, “no-fault” divorce, “no-frills” vacation, “no-nonsense” attitude, “no-win” situation and so on.

However, there is a small group of hyphenated “no” nouns, five of which are fairly common: “no-brainer,” “no-hitter” and “no-show,” the informal “no-account,” and “no-no,” still considered slang by the most recent Webster’s.

A less common one is “no-see-um,” called a pseudo-American Indian term, altered from “no see them.” It should be obvious why the term “biting midge” is considered more acceptable for this family of tiny, bothersome insects. (Some species actually attack humans and animals in swarms.)

“The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories” says “midge” is of Germanic origin and from an Indo-European root shared by the Latin “musca” and the Greek “muia,” both meaning “fly.”

As you might suspect, “midge” is where the word “midget” comes from.

You just never know where a word journey will take you.

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