This song popped up today in an iPod shuffle. I hadn’t heard it in months. A line from its second verse grabbed my ear.
“…love is scattered and hungry / but it is the only real thing….”
— Kacy Crowley, “Hand to Mouthville”
Damn, I love her.
My best friend on this planet, the wondrous Sherry Ann — every ounce of whose homework, it must be noted, she copied verbatim off of my paper, from the eighth grade forward — most randomly had me diagramming sentences via text message today (don’t ask), and she presented me with an interesting conundrum which continues to haunt me hours later.
Word for word, the question she posed:
“In the sentence ‘He had a paper clip,’ is ‘paper clip’ a noun? Or is ‘paper’ an adjective describing ‘clip’?”
I immediately answered back that ‘paper clip’ was a noun, but then I started thinking, is this a trick question? Half a day past, I’m still wondering.
Grammar freaks unite. And discuss.
