Why English language is sometimes "lazy", sometimes not
Why English language is sometimes "lazy", sometimes not
(non-native speaker)
Is there a reason why the English language has "special" words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?
And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.
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I think what you mean is compound words vs other words?
Wikipedia says there are lots of compound words in English.
Plaintiff is borrowed from Old French. Litigation from Latin...
I suppose it boils down to when and under what circumstances a term was needed to describe something. Sometimes there was a word from another language available. Or the whole subject came from a different culture. And sometimes they just described it with a compound of what it resembles. And how to make up terms probably also depends on what is en vogue at the time.