(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.

  • rufus
    5·
    4 months ago

    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.