"Breakneck"

Here's one of my old stand-by interests.   I noticed some time ago that there are compound nouns in English that are a) constructed as verb-noun pairs, b) old (they don't make 'em any more, apparently) and c) almost universally pejorative.   I've compiled a long list, but some obvious examples are pickpocket, cutthroat, sawbones, daredevil, breakneck and scofflaw.

Some are less obvious than others.   I've become convinced that "hangman" refers not to a man that hangs, but someone who hangs men.   Likewise a wet-blanket is not someone who's like a blanket that's wet, but someone who wets a blanket, in other words, who spoils the mood.   Consider also "dimwit" and "pastime".   There are plenty of others that I used to take for granted without realizing their structure: "rotgut", "scarecrow", "spendthrift" and "telltale", for instance.

I said these are all old, but many of them are simply not in circulation any more; you have to read some really old books to encounter "smell-smock", "love-bed", "pinchfart", "lickspittle" or "gripefarthing".   Some others are still around: "lackluster", for example, "spoilsport", "turncoat".

I couldn't say why these interest me, but if anyone has any that aren't on my list, I'm always looking.   Here are all the ones I've found so far, in alphabetical order: breakbone breakheart breakneck breakwater cutpurse cutthroat daredevil dimwit gripe-farthing hangdog hangman killjoy know-all know-nothing lackluster lackwit lickspittle make-work mar-all numbwit pastime ("pass-time") pickpocket pinchfart pinchpenny rakehell rotgut sawbones scarecrow scofflaw scrape-farthing smell-smock spendthrift spitfire spoilsport stopgap swashbuckler telltale turncoat turnkey wet-blanket.