# Very Cobless



## Porbo

My querry today is this: I am asked to locate the adjectives "in the following nonsense sentence."

Some holty beltins were very cobless.
cobless appears to be a real adjective, unlike holty which is invented. If it is so, it seems to me that, because of the nature of its meaning, it cannot be preceded by an intensifier like Very. It could be that the writer has taken it to be a nonsensical word like Holty and Beltins.


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## KHS

"cobless" does not appear in the online OED.  While most adjectives ending in  -less mean they are at zero level, not all of them do.
For example, "She was extremely thoughtless." would work.


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## entangledbank

'Cob' is a real word, with several meanings, but it's hard to imagine wanting to describe something as cobless. It's a nonsense word in the sense that no-one would ever use it.


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## Porbo

KHS said:


> "cobless" does not appear in the online OED.  While most adjectives ending in  -less mean they are at zero level, not all of them do.
> For example, "She was extremely thoughtless." would work.


Bu not extremely cobless?


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## Porbo

entangledbank said:


> 'Cob' is a real word, with several meanings, but it's hard to imagine wanting to describe something as cobless. It's a nonsense word in the sense that no-one would ever use it.


I've been confused because there is the phrase Cobless Corn


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## pops91710

Porbo said:


> I've been confused because there is the phrase Cobless Corn


True. Because corn is eaten either on the cob or cobless.Corn on the cob is a very American favorite.


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## Porbo

pops91710 said:


> True. Because corn is eaten either on the cob or cobless.Corn on the cob is a very American favorite.


But cobless would be an adjective of one only and unique use, used only to say that te corn (grain) is off the cob?


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## pops91710

Porbo said:


> But cobless would be an adjective of one only and unique use, used only to say that te corn (grain) is off the cob?


No. But it is difficult to discuss or clarify this without more context. A cob has several definitions, but until we know what beltins are or what the sentence you posted refers to, it is hard to say what cobless means other than "without cob". 

Definition of _cob_​
1[perhaps short for _cobswan_ lead swan] *: *a male swan

2 adialectal, England *: *a rounded mass, lump, or heap
b*: *a mixture of unburned clay and straw used especially for constructing walls of small houses in England

3*: *a crudely struck old Spanish coin of irregular shape —often used before another nouna cob dollar

4*: *CORNCOB sense 1

5*: *a stocky short-legged riding horse
Definition of COB

As you can see, any one of these five could be the meaning of cobless, but who knows without more context?


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## Loob

I agree with etb. In the sentence as written, "cobless" is a nonsense word.


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## velisarius

I don't think adjectives ending in_ --less _can be modified by_ very (_or_ extremely).

It was a very an utterly hopeless case.
Some holty beltins were very completely cobless._


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## PaulQ

Porbo said:


> cobless appears to be a real adjective, unlike holty which is invented. If it is so, it seems to me that, because of the nature of its meaning, it cannot be preceded by an intensifier like Very.


You have not said what a "cobless" is. Could you do that?  

You have been told that the sentences are nonsense.  *Some, were* and *very *are not nonsense, but the sentence is. Even if, by some chance, "cobless" were a known word*, the statement that the following sentences were nonsense would lead you to understand that, in this sense, "cobless" was also nonsense. As such, it should not colour anything.

*"The summer had been very poor and the chestnut trees were cobless." / "There are usually more male swans than females, and so a cobless pen is rare." (Both are nonce uses.)


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## PaulQ

velisarius said:


> I don't think adjectives ending in_ --less _can be modified by_ very (_or_ extremely)._


That seems very careless or thoughtless.


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## Porbo

PaulQ said:


> You have not said what a "cobless" is. Could you do that?
> 
> You have been told that the sentences are nonsense.  *Some, were* and *very *are not nonsense, but the sentence is. Even if, by some chance, "cobless" were a known word*, the statement that the following sentences were nonsense would lead you to understand that, in this sense, "cobless" was also nonsense. As such, it should not colour anything.
> 
> *"The summer had been very poor and the chestnut trees were cobless." / "There are usually more male swans than females, and so a cobless pen is rare." (Both are nonce uses.)





velisarius said:


> I don't think adjectives ending in_ --less _can be modified by_ very (_or_ extremely).
> 
> It was a very an utterly hopeless case.
> Some holty beltins were very completely cobless._


The writer I quoted, himself says 'find the adjectives in the following nonsense sentences;  and there are two  which he 'invents', Holty and Cobless. But it happens that Cobless [cobless corn] does exist as a word in English. Cobless would mean -it would seem- teeth  of corn by themselves, cleaned off the cob!!!!!The author of the book where I found the sentence probably didn't know that.


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## Porbo

pops91710 said:


> No. But it is difficult to discuss or clarify this without more context. A cob has several definitions, but until we know what beltins are or what the sentence you posted refers to, it is hard to say what cobless means other than "without cob".
> 
> Definition of _cob_​
> 1[perhaps short for _cobswan_ lead swan] *: *a male swan
> 
> 2 adialectal, England *: *a rounded mass, lump, or heap
> b*: *a mixture of unburned clay and straw used especially for constructing walls of small houses in England
> 
> 3*: *a crudely struck old Spanish coin of irregular shape —often used before another nouna cob dollar
> 
> 4*: *CORNCOB sense 1
> 
> 5*: *a stocky short-legged riding horse
> Definition of COB
> 
> As you can see, any one of these five could be the meaning of cobless, but who knows without more context?


cobless corn?


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## Porbo

Porbo said:


> The writer I quoted, himself says 'find the adjectives in the following nonsense sentences;  and there are two  which he 'invents', Holty and Cobless. But it happens that Cobless [cobless corn] does exist as a word in English. Cobless would mean -it would seem- teeth  of corn by themselves, cleaned off the cob!!!!!The author of the book where I found the sentence probably didn't know that.


Correction:  It appears cobless corn  is a type or kind of corn: About eight years ago Mr. Sconce originated the cobless corn, as it was christened by a newspaper man, and it made a furore at the time. The ears are up to fourteen inches long and every kernel in the twenty rows is encased in a husk. The cob weighs but three per cent of the entire ear and the whole ear is edible by stock, carrying roughage along with the grain.


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## PaulQ

Porbo said:


> Correction:


Be that as it may, and I gave you two possibilities for "cobless" myself, my point still stands:


PaulQ said:


> the statement that the following sentences were nonsense would lead you to understand that, in this sense, "cobless" was also nonsense. As such, it should not colour anything.


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## Myridon

velisarius said:


> I don't think adjectives ending in_ --less _can be modified by_ very (_or_ extremely)._


I have no problem with it.  He was chased down the lane by a very headless Headless Horseman.


Porbo said:


> Correction:  It appears cobless corn  is a type or kind of corn: About eight years ago Mr. Sconce originated the cobless corn, as it was christened by a newspaper man, and it made a furore at the time. The ears are up to fourteen inches long and every kernel in the twenty rows is encased in a husk. The cob weighs but three per cent of the entire ear and the whole ear is edible by stock, carrying roughage along with the grain.


This quote is from 1918. 
How These Farmers Succeeded
This variety of corn has not become popular in the last 100 years.

Normally, when we Americans eat corn (maize) that isn't on the cob, we just call it corn.  The other way is called "corn on the cob." There are a few recipes on the Internet for "cobless corn" in which the corn is cut-off as you are making the recipe rather than buying the corn already that way.  I usually call that sort of dish "corn off the cob." 

English allows ordinary people to combine prefixes and postfixes to create words as needed so you will see words that aren't in the dictionary oftenish (I made one right there.)

I'd say that it's unlikely that beltins grown on cobs even when they are very holty, so the sentence is nonsense even if "cobless" is a real word.


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## Porbo

velisarius said:


> I don't think adjectives ending in_ --less _can be modified by_ very (_or_ extremely).
> 
> It was a very an utterly hopeless case.
> Some holty beltins were very completely cobless._


The theory of the author is that we would be able to tell the adjectives in a sentence even if the words are invented, not English. For instance, we would know that Holty is an adjective because it precedes the 'invented' noun Beltins, a noun that carries the s of the plural of nouns. Also because of the ending -y. We also recognise cobless as an adjective because it's, like adjectives are, preceded by the adverb Very,  and also notice the ending -less.


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## Uncle Jack

Porbo said:


> The writer I quoted, himself says 'find the adjectives in the following nonsense sentences;  and there are two  which he 'invents', Holty and Cobless. But it happens that Cobless [cobless corn] does exist as a word in English. Cobless would mean -it would seem- teeth  of corn by themselves, cleaned off the cob!!!!!The author of the book where I found the sentence probably didn't know that.


It doesn't matter whether "cobless" is also a real word or not. I am pretty sure that "very" without a determiner can only modify an adjective or adverb, and the sentence with "be" does not allow an adverb.

There is an art to writing nonsense, so that even though the meanings of individual words might be obscure, we know which words are verbs, nouns, adjectives and so on. We can identify subjects and objects and we can pick out the modifiers and identify what they modify. Native English speakers have no problem working out the sentence structure in this, for example:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves​Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:​All mimsy were the borogoves,​And the mome raths outgrabe.​From _Jabberwocky_, from _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_ by Lewis Carroll

There might be a slight question over "outgrabe", since it doesn't have a regular past tense ending, but there can be no doubt it is a past tense verb.

I admit that _The Loch Ness Monster's Song_ by Edwin Morgan is rather harder to parse. It begins:
Sssnnnwhuffffll?​Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?​Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.​


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## Porbo

Myridon said:


> I have no problem with it.  He was chased down the lane by a very headless Headless Horseman.
> 
> This quote is from 1918.
> How These Farmers Succeeded
> This variety of corn has not become popular in the last 100 years.
> 
> Normally, when we Americans eat corn (maize) that isn't on the cob, we just call it corn.  The other way is called "corn on the cob." There are a few recipes on the Internet for "cobless corn" in which the corn is cut-off as you are making the recipe rather than buying the corn already that way.  I usually call that sort of dish "corn off the cob."
> 
> English allows ordinary people to combine prefixes and postfixes to create words as needed so you will see words that aren't in the dictionary oftenish (I made one right there.)
> 
> I'd say that it's unlikely that beltins grown on cobs even when they are very holty, so the sentence is nonsense even if "cobless" is a real word.


The point is some grammar writer declares that one would be able to tell the adjectives in a sentence even if the words representing them are not English words. I am for believing that the writer wasn't aware that there is such word as cobless in English..!!


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## Loob

Porbo said:


> . I am for believing that the writer wasn't aware that there is such word as cobless in English..!!


It doesn't matter whether he was aware or not. In his sentence, it was a nonsense word.


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## Porbo

Uncle Jack said:


> It doesn't matter whether "cobless" is also a real word or not. I am pretty sure that "very" without a determiner can only modify an adjective or adverb, and the sentence with "be" does not allow an adverb.
> 
> There is an art to writing nonsense, so that even though the meanings of individual words might be obscure, we know which words are verbs, nouns, adjectives and so on. We can identify subjects and objects and we can pick out the modifiers and identify what they modify. Native English speakers have no problem working out the sentence structure in this, for example:
> ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves​Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:​All mimsy were the borogoves,​And the mome raths outgrabe.​From _Jabberwocky_, from _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_ by Lewis Carroll
> 
> There might be a slight question over "outgrabe", since it doesn't have a regular past tense ending, but there can be no doubt it is a past tense verb.
> 
> I admit that _The Loch Ness Monster's Song_ by Edwin Morgan is rather harder to parse. It begins:
> Sssnnnwhuffffll?​Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?​Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.​


Still we wouldn't say  VERY headless, noseless, cobless and lesses of this kind....


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## Chasint

Porbo said:


> My querry today is this: I am asked to locate the adjectives "in the following nonsense sentence."
> 
> Some holty beltins were very cobless.
> cobless appears to be a real adjective, unlike holty which is invented. If it is so, it seems to me that, because of the nature of its meaning, it cannot be preceded by an intensifier like Very. It could be that the writer has taken it to be a nonsensical word like Holty and Beltins.


1. Yes. It is clear that the writer did not know that cobless exists. (as in cobless corn)
2. There is a real word "jobless". It is debatable whether we would ever describe someone as "very jobless" because it simply means "without a job" and there seems to be no intermediate state between having a job and not having a job.
3. The author implicitly defined cobless to be nonsensical in this sentence by asserting that it is a nonsense sentence.
4. The question then is - Can any English word, ending in -less, be an adjective that accepts "very"?
5. PaulQ offers "careless". It is possible to be very careless.  

Conclusion

If we accept the author's premise that "cobless" is nonsense in the given sentence, then we can also accept that it might follow the pattern of "careless" in being an aspect of some person's behaviour.

Therefore , just as someone can be very careless, another person (such as  for example a beltin) might be very cobless. QED

___________________________

P.S. querry query


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## Myridon

Porbo said:


> Still we wouldn't say  VERY headless, noseless, cobless and lesses of this kind....


Yes, WE would, or, at least, I would.  These prescriptive rules based on "logic" don't actually describe the language that is spoken in the real world.  The grammar police would also have you believe that millions of people don't say "very unique."


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## Porbo

Loob said:


> I agree with etb. In the sentence as written, "cobless" is a nonsense word.


I agree. But what confused me is that 'very' signals that what follows must be


Chasint said:


> 1. Yes. It is clear that the writer did not know that cobless exists. (as in cobless corn)
> 2. There is a real word "jobless". It is debatable whether we would ever describe someone as "very jobless" because it simply means "without a job" and there seems to be no intermediate state between having a job and not having a job.
> 3. The author implicitly defined cobless to be nonsensical in this sentence by asserting that it is a nonsense sentence.
> 4. The question then is - Can any English word, ending in -less, be an adjective that accepts "very"?
> 5. PaulQ offers "careless". It is possible to be very careless.
> 
> Conclusion
> 
> If we accept the author's premise that "cobless" is nonsense in the given sentence, then we can also accept that it might follow the pattern of "careless" in being an aspect of some person's behaviour.
> 
> Therefore , just as someone can be very careless, another person (such as  for example a beltin) might be very cobless. QED
> 
> ___________________________
> 
> P.S. querry query


The confusion for me comes from the writer having given the signal VERY to indicate that the following word─in the sentence in question─ must be an adjective, and then choosing a word cobless, whether real or nonsense, which doesn't admit VERY before it.  Because as you say, like jobless, it means without a cob.


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## Chasint

Porbo said:


> I agree. But what confused me is that 'very' signals that what follows must be
> 
> The confusion for me comes from the writer having given the signal VERY to indicate that the following word─in the sentence in question─ must be an adjective, and then choosing a word cobless, whether real or nonsense, which doesn't admit VERY before it.  Because as you say, like jobless, it means without a cob.


Yes. But as PaulQ points out, "very careless" is possible, and "careless" means without care. Let us imagine that "cob" is a synonym of "care" - then all is fine. We should merely upbraid those feckless beltins for their coblessness and urge them to be more cobful in future!


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## Loob

Porbo said:


> then choosing a word cobless, whether real or nonsense, which doesn't admit VERY before it.


He chose a nonsense word which _did_ admit "very" before it.


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## Porbo

Porbo said:


> I agree. But what confused me is that 'very' signals that what follows must be
> 
> The confusion for me comes from the writer having given the signal VERY to indicate that the following word─in the sentence in question─ must be an adjective, and then choosing a word cobless, whether real or nonsense, which doesn't admit VERY before it.  Because as you say, like jobless, it means without a cob.





Loob said:


> He chose a nonsense word which did admit "very" before it.


Yes, agreed, Because the word is meaningless, I see.   But  I thought of it a 'Very without a cob (cobless).' *Like very headless


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## Porbo

Chasint said:


> Yes. But as PaulQ points out, "very careless" is possible, and "careless" means without care. Let us imagine that "cob" is a synonym of "care" - then all is fine. We should merely upbraid those feckless beltins for their coblessness and urge them to be more cobful in future!


without care is no the same a lacking care.  A person has care but doesn't apply it, whereas in the case of jobless, headless, cobless mean they don't have those things.


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## Chasint

Porbo said:


> without care isn't the same as lacking care.


Yes it is. It is exactly the same.


> *lacking*
> prep.
> 
> 3. being without:
> Lacking equipment, the scientists gave up.
> 
> lacking - WordReference.com Dictionary of English





Porbo said:


> A person has care but doesn't apply it, whereas in the case of jobless, headless, cobless mean they don't have those things.


This makes no sense. I can just as easily say that a person has cob but doesn't apply it. Beltins are notorious for not applying enough cob.


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## Porbo

Porbo said:


> without care is no the same a lacking care.  A person has care but doesn't apply it, whereas in the case of jobless, headless, cobless mean they don't have those things.


There is no problem in finding which the adjectives are in this other nonsense sentence by the same author:  The riffish pates seemed ribolous.


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## Chasint

Porbo said:


> There is no problem in finding which the adjectives are in this other nonsense sentence by the same author:  The riffish pates seemed ribolous.


"pate" is a real word. I have the feeling that you are deliberately being ribolous now!


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## Porbo

Chasint said:


> Yes it is. It is exactly the same.
> 
> 
> 
> This makes no sense. I can just as easily say that a person has cob but doesn't apply it. Beltins are notorious for not applying enough cob.


 Human beings don't have the care but the feeling, the moral innate sentiment which inclines them to care about other people only, sometimes we don't realise that moral innate basic disposition and neglect it; don't put it to practice.


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## Porbo

Chasint said:


> "pate" is a real word. I have the feeling that you are deliberately being ribolous now!


I know it's a noun,  it has the s of the plural and an adjectives comes before it. The adjective we can tell because of the ending -ish.  The the whole noun phrase is The riffish pates, which functions as subject in the sentence...


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## Chasint

I agree.


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## Myridon

Pates is clearly a post-positional adjective.  Riffish are commonly found swimming in rifs.


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## Porbo

Myridon said:


> Yes, WE would, or, at least, I would.  These prescriptive rules based on "logic" don't actually describe the language that is spoken in the real world.  The grammar police would also have you believe that millions of people don't say "very unique."


We'd probably say 'Very (much) without a job/out of a job'.  But 'very jobless?'


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## PaulQ

Porbo said:


> then choosing a word cobless, whether real or nonsense, which doesn't admit VERY before it.


If a word has "very" before it, (and no determiner before "very") then all it can be is an adjective. Had the writer used "x" or a blank, then the same can be applied but it would be more obvious. The test is obviously designed to make you think by being a little (not completely) misleading - "a trap for the unwary" as they say.


Porbo said:


> But I thought of it a 'Very without a cob (cobless).' *Like very headless


I agree that many (but not all) "-less" words are ungradeable as adjectives.


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## Cagey

We ask for the source of every quotation.  The sentence appears in the following published book:




New Approaches to Language and Composition, Book 7
_Volume 7 of Laidlaw linguistics program_
_New Approaches to Language and Composition_, Wayne HarshContributorWayne HarshPublisherLaidlaw Bros., 1969


Wayne Harsh was Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of California at Davis until he retired in 1987.


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## Chasint

Cagey said:


> ...
> Wayne Harsh was Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of California at Davis


Hard to believe, given his lack of vocabulary.


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## Cagey

People may be interested in our previous discussion of Chomsky's more famous example of this feature of language: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously


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## Wordy McWordface

Definitely nonsense. A load of cobless, in fact.


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## Uncle Jack

Porbo said:


> The confusion for me comes from the writer having given the signal VERY to indicate that the following word─in the sentence in question─ must be an adjective, and then choosing a word cobless, whether real or nonsense, which doesn't admit VERY before it. Because as you say, like jobless, it means without a cob.


"Careless" and "thoughtless" are gradable "-less" adjectives. We don't know what "cobless" means, but we know it has to be a gradable adjective, just like we know that "outgrabe" in _Jabberwocky _(post #19) has to be a past tense verb. I cannot think of a single past tense verb in English that ends in "-abe", and with "raths" apparently being a plural, readers may initially read it as the third person plural present indicative. But this does not fit, so we accept that it is an irregular past tense, even though it is not of a form we have ever come across before.


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## PaulQ

Uncle Jack said:


> "outgrabe" in _Jabberwocky _(post #19) has to be a past tense verb.


It seems to follow give > gave, and/or drive > drave (late ME/eModE).


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## Chasint

PaulQ said:


> It seems to follow give > gave, and/or drive > drave (late ME/eModE).


Not only this - the context tells us also. Every other verb in the verse is in past tense.

“*Twas* brillig, and the slithy toves
*Did *gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy *were* the borogoves,
And the mome raths *outgrabe*.”

Clearly, this outbreak of outgribing took place at the same time as the other activities.

_______________________________________



> *outgribe*
> 
> v. to make a sound between a deep bellow, a whistle, and a sneeze.
> 
> verb forms: outgribe (present tense), outgribing (present participle), outgrabe (past tense), outgribben (past participle)
> 1. I always outgribe when a bug flies into my mouth.
> 
> 2. Sometimes the seals are out outgribing on the beach.
> 
> 3. Once my sister outgrabe when she stepped on a thistle.
> 
> 4. I have never outgribben before. Have you?


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## Porbo

PaulQ said:


> If a word has "very" before it, (and no determiner before "very") then all it can be is an adjective. Had the writer used "x" or a blank, then the same can be applied but it would be more obvious. The test is obviously designed to make you think by being a little (not completely) misleading - "a trap for the unwary" as they say.
> 
> I agree that many (but not all) "-less" words are ungradeable as adjectives.


I think the difference is that when the first word of the compound  [thought, care, sense] is something not physical, tangible, then you can say VERY thoughtless, VERY careless, VERY MUCH senseless.  Not when it is a physical, tangible thing that you lose and have no more.......  *VERY headless, *VERY jobless, *VERY cobless. Perhaps word other than VERY would work?


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## owlman5

_Very _works as well as any other adverb in that nonsense sentence. You could use _brightly cobless, _for instance, and the result would be just as nonsensical as _very cobless _is.


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## PaulQ

That seems reasonable guidance. See my signature below. 


Porbo said:


> Perhaps word other than VERY would work?


"Very" is used by most teachers as a general indicator of adjectives. It is not perfect but it is good enough for you to answer your original example.

The other clue is that the verb in the sentence is stative - the guidance is that stative verbs take adjectives as complements.


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## Chasint

I think people are answering far too cobfully about this rather holty question. Can we move on? I fear that the beltins are getting restless.


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## Roxxxannne

Chasint said:


> I think people are answering far too cobfully about this rather holty question. Can we move on? I fear that the beltins are getting restless.


Coblessly restless, I'd say; of course I speak as a beltin, though not a very holty one.


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## KHS

PaulQ said:
I think the difference is that when the first word of the compound   [thought, care, sense] is something not physical, tangible, then you can say VERY thoughtless, VERY careless, VERY MUCH senseless.  Not when it is a physical, tangible thing that you lose and have no more.......   *VERY headless, *VERY jobless, *VERY cobless. Perhaps word other than VERY would work?
---
Excellent observation.  What about words such as  "amazingly" or "totally" - or "completely" - Can we class them as intensifiers?


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## Myridon

One can't assume that cobiness is tangible.  The word was invented by the author specifically to be used with "very." Regardless, I have no trouble thinking that the Headless Horseman is very much more headless than Nearly-Headless Nick. Both of them are still in possession of their heads so they are less headless than some entity whose head has been destroyed.  You might find it poetic or metaphorical, but this is language, not mathematics.


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## Porbo

owlman5 said:


> _Very _works as well as any other adverb in that nonsense sentence. You could use _brightly cobless, _for instance, and the result would be just as nonsensical as _very cobless _is.


The coincidence is that there's a variety of corn called Cobless Corn, which is what drove me to ask in the first place


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## Myridon

Porbo said:


> The coincidence is that there's a variety of corn called Cobless Corn, which is what drove me to ask in the first place


Google can find pretty much any combination of two words. You found a quote that is over 100 years old about something that never became a real product.


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## owlman5

Porbo said:


> The coincidence is that there's a variety of corn called Cobless Corn, which is what drove me to ask in the first place



I have certainly bought shelled corn before, but I haven't ever heard anybody refer to _cobless corn_. Your first post was my introduction to the adjective.


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## Myridon

owlman5 said:


> I have certainly bought shelled corn before, but I haven't ever heard anybody refer to _cobless corn_. Your first post was my introduction to the adjective.


I already posted on the topic of what corn not on the cob is called, but I've never heard it called "shelled" before.


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## RM1(SS)

Uncle Jack said:


> There might be a slight question over "outgrabe", since it doesn't have a regular past tense ending, but there can be no doubt it is a past tense verb.


I thought it was an adjective until I found it used clearly as a verb in _The Hunting of the Snark_.


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## Uncle Jack

Porbo said:


> I think the difference is that when the first word of the compound  [thought, care, sense] is something not physical, tangible, then you can say VERY thoughtless, VERY careless, VERY MUCH senseless.  Not when it is a physical, tangible thing that you lose and have no more.......  *VERY headless, *VERY jobless, *VERY cobless. Perhaps word other than VERY would work?


Since "Some naughty children were very thoughtless" is a perfectly acceptable sentence, using "some", "were very" and a "-less" adjective, I really do not see why you should think "cobless" does not fit. We might not know what it means, but there is no difficulty in working out that it is an adjective.


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## Porbo

KHS said:


> PaulQ said:
> I think the difference is that when the first word of the compound   [thought, care, sense] is something not physical, tangible, then you can say VERY thoughtless, VERY careless, VERY MUCH senseless.  Not when it is a physical, tangible thing that you lose and have no more.......   *VERY headless, *VERY jobless, *VERY cobless. Perhaps word other than VERY would work?
> ---
> Excellent observation.  What about words such as  "amazingly" or "totally" - or "completely" - Can we class them as intensifiers?





Uncle Jack said:


> Since "Some naughty children were very thoughtless" is a perfectly acceptable sentence, using "some", "were very" and a "-less" adjective, I really do not see why you should think "cobless" does not fit. We might not know what it means, but there is no difficulty in working out that it is an adjective.


I think that you either have a cob or you don't; I think you cannot have (a) 'very of a no cop.'


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## Myridon

Porbo said:


> I think that you either have a cob or you don't; I think you cannot have (a) 'very of a no cop.'


The writer didn't intend "cob" to have any particular meaning other than one that would work with "-less". You're forcing it to have a meaning that doesn't work when it could just as easily have a meaning that does work.


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## Hermione Golightly

The majority doesn't believe there's any such word as 'cobless'. That is the whole point - nonsense, without meaning. Grammatically, some adjectives ending in '-less' can be modified by 'very'. We can't speculate what it means because there is no meaning. If you want to prattle on about corn-on-the-cob, nothing's stopping you, as far as I can see. Maybe you are doing some exercise in which you have to identify the made-up words?


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## Porbo

Myridon said:


> The writer didn't intend "cob" to have any particular meaning other than one that would work with "-less". You're forcing it to have a meaning that doesn't work when it could just as easily have a meaning that does work.





Hermione Golightly said:


> The majority doesn't believe there's any such word as 'cobless'. That is the whole point - nonsense, without meaning. Grammatically, some adjectives ending in '-less' can be modified by 'very'. We can't speculate what it means because there is no meaning. If you want to prattle on about corn-on-the-cob, nothing's stopping you, as far as I can see. Maybe you are doing some exercise in which you have to identify the made-up words?


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## Porbo

Yes. That's my point. If one has no job (is jobless), one cannot be VERY 'with no job (jobless).'  'Thought' is different in nature, the meaning of the word is; so it's ok to say very thoughtless. I might be mistaken!


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## Loob

Porbo, this thread already has 60+ posts. What more do you want us to say?


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## Uncle Jack

Porbo said:


> Yes. That's my point. If one has no job (is jobless), one cannot be VERY 'with no job (jobless).'  'Thought' is different in nature, the meaning of the word is; so it's ok to say very thoughtless. I might be mistaken!


Why cannot "cobless" also have this same "difference in nature", as you call it? 

You appear to be putting things the wrong way round. From the sentence, we know "cobless" has to be an adjective. It clearly cannot be a non-gradable adjective, so that rules out meanings like "windowless" or "headless". However, this still leaves enough other possibilities, such as "careless" or "restless".


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## Porbo

_ I would not have had a problem had the word been  jpafgless or similar.  Thanks for your patience all. Thank you._


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## Porbo

Thank you all very much!


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