This piece of etymology trivia truly delighted me: A cutthroat compound is when the verb comes first in a descriptive phrase, instead of the adjective that English usually uses. As Adam Aleksic tells us here, the cutthroat compounds are mostly insults and probably influenced by French grammar, which is just perfect. “How can I be really insulting?” the 16th century English thought. “I know! I’ll treat it like a French phrase.” Wonderful.
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