Why English language is sometimes "lazy", sometimes not - eviltoast

(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.

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
      3·
      6 months ago

      could you say that town is homelessnessless?

      Has. The word is legit, but it would be an adjective because of the last -less there, so:

      • That town has homelessnessless.
      • That homelessnessless town is nice.

      You could convert it back into a noun, through zero derivation; for example “homeless” is an adjective too, but people can say “the homeless are hungry”, as if it was a noun. But it sounds weird in this situation, I don’t know why.