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by Symbiote 3273 days ago
English can do compound words, except with spaces between the words. This is better: is clear where the boundaries are. When the word combination is used frequently, it may become a single word, like pushchair.

My pushchair wheel lock mechanism is broken.

Or my pushchairwheellockmechanism is broken.

1 comments

Let's be careful on proclaiming what's better.

Yes, the spaces make it easier to distinguish the individual components, but on the flip side it makes it much harder to figure out where the compound group ends. Even your examples illustrate that.

Different languages have evolved according to different, sometimes diametrical opposite goals. As a consequence, somethings are easier to express in some languages than in others. That's the beauty.

The group ends at the verb. I expect there can be ambiguity sometimes, but I don't see it in the example.

I'm learning Danish, and regularly have trouble working out where compound words should be divided. I can't see any benefit compared to separating the words with hyphens or spaces. The pronunciation would be the same.