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From: gh@utai.UUCP (Graeme Hirst)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Tuna Fish
Message-ID: <450@utai.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Apr-85 12:59:23 EST
Article-I.D.: utai.450
Posted: Tue Apr 23 12:59:23 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Apr-85 13:52:02 EST
References: <538@cadovax.UUCP>
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 15

> How come people call it "tuna fish" instead of just "tuna"?  They
> never say "salmon fish" or "trout fish".
> --
> Bob Kaplan

This sort of thing seems to depend on dialect and idiosyncracies of the
object.  For me, "tuna fish" is marked as American; as a speaker of Australian
English, I would always just say "tuna".

On the other hand, there seem to be other specific words that optionally take
the generic; e.g. "collie dog" and "collie" are equally good (in my dialect),
but not "spaniel dog", etc.  (How about "sheepdog"?)
-- 
\\\\   Graeme Hirst    University of Toronto	Computer Science Department
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