But it started as one word, it wasn’t made into one word later afaik. The words also aren’t interchangeable. The thing being talked about is fundamentally nip, not a cat. In a saying like tick tock, the tick part and tock part are interchangeable. In “big bad” they’re both referring to the wolf so again they’re interchangeable. In this case the “nip” part is the same as the wolf part in “big bad wolf”.
If I were to say wolf nip, you’d think of a version of catnip for wolves. If I were to say nip wolf, you’d think of of a wolf that bites people.
I think you misunderstand what I mean. It comes from 2 separate words being put together, but as far as I’m aware it’s always been a compound word, as in it’s always been called catnip, not cat nip.
What about cat nip?
My mom, who learned english later in life always says “nip cat”, maybe unconsciously trying to follow the rule?
It’s because “catnip” is one word.
Anything can be one word if you remove the spaces 🤷♂️
But it started as one word, it wasn’t made into one word later afaik. The words also aren’t interchangeable. The thing being talked about is fundamentally nip, not a cat. In a saying like tick tock, the tick part and tock part are interchangeable. In “big bad” they’re both referring to the wolf so again they’re interchangeable. In this case the “nip” part is the same as the wolf part in “big bad wolf”.
If I were to say wolf nip, you’d think of a version of catnip for wolves. If I were to say nip wolf, you’d think of of a wolf that bites people.
Technically it started as two words… cat + abbreviation of the latin name (nepeta).
I don’t know how i feel about this pedantic argument being my very first contribution to Lemmy, but here we are.
I think you misunderstand what I mean. It comes from 2 separate words being put together, but as far as I’m aware it’s always been a compound word, as in it’s always been called catnip, not cat nip.