I said to my wife this morning, "I have to go get the trash trash." I'm going to explain this... and invite others to discuss other examples of the crazy ways languages are used.
The word "refuse" (short E, accent on first syllable) means anything unwanted, anything that needs to be thrown away. I'll use it here for clarity, but it is a formal word, never used in everyday speech.
The normal word for "refuse" in colloquial U.S. speech is "trash." ("Rubbish" in the UK, "trash" in the U.S.).
"Trash" can also mean a specific <em>kind</em> of refuse. In fact, it often has a definition in local town ordinances. Most medium-sized towns provide the service of "trash collection." You put your trash out next to the street and "garbage trucks" collect it and take it away. Towns make rules about the kind of containers that are allowed. Often there are separate categories of trash, and separate trucks make separate runs to pick up the different kinds.
In our town, we put out special containers provided by the town: yellow for refuse that can be recycled, green for refuse that cannot be recycled... which is officially known as "trash."
As recycling became more common, so did the distinctive container called "the recycle bin." This got shortened over time, and it is now normal usage to say "the recycle" to mean either a container that holds recyclable refuse, or the recyclable refuse that goes into it.
So, we have two kinds of "trash." We call one of them "the recycle." What can we use for the other kind?
We can't say "the trash" because that is ambiguous.
We could say "the non-recyclable trash" but that's too long.
So, we take the noun "trash" in its narrow meaning of "the refuse that can't be recycled," and we use it as an adjective--which is a pretty legitimate thing to do in colloquial English--and apply it to the noun "trash" in its wide meaning.
First "trash" means "non-recyclable," second "trash" means "refuse." The non-recyclable refuse... the "trash trash."
"We're friends, but not friend-frends."
You've got it Cathy...
- do you like her?
- I do like her, but I don't like like her.
Makes total sense, unless you're trying to learn learn English, ha.
It's common to hear the phrase 'I'm not a "people person" '.
And the plural of that would be what? 'We're not "people people" ?'
KP, to reply to your point about the suffixes, 'trashy' is something else entirely. The adjective 'trashy' means 'like trash/having trash-like qualities'. So you would describe a poorly-written romantic novel as trashy, for example. But the term 'trashy trash' would be meaningless. The stuff you put out to be collected isn't 'like trash' - it IS trash.
Dan's term is a two-noun phrase - he's explaining to his wife exactly what kind of trash he's putting out. In English we make a noun more specific by putting a another noun before it. What kind of trash? Trash trash.
Thus, although my state, to its great credit, still issues cards that say "Driver's License" on them, many states if not the majority issue "Driver Licenses." People talk about "fry pans" rather than "frying pans," "doctor bills" rather than "doctors' bills," etc.
That's interesting. In my area it's most common to refer to these as "driver's licenses", "frying pans" and "doctor's bills". Mind you my wife would think I had suffered a stroke if I said I was taking out the "trash trash". If anything I just say I was taking out the garbage & she'd yell "remember the recycling too".
We use 'garbage', 'rubbish' and 'trash' synonymously here and I didn't even realise the latter two were a British/US English difference 'til I came to italki. Is 'garbage' used in both the US and the UK?
We call recyclable refuse 'the recycling' rather than 'the recycle'. I'm finding a lot of these regional English differences really surprising. As a random example, I learned last year that Americans don't use 'the washing' to mean 'the laundry' (http://www.italki.com/question/222857). Su Ki, could you (or someone else from England) clarify if it's used like that there?
