Talk:squatter camp

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Latest comment: 12 years ago by DCDuring in topic RFC discussion: August 2011
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RFC discussion: August 2011[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

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"Settlements with shacks made of wood, cardboard, tin and other scrap material" followed by a lot of usage notes that aren't part of the definition itself. Tone also seems to me to be too informal. Furthermore, surely the definition isn't "Settlements with shacks made of wood, cardboard, tin and other scrap material", it's essentially some sort of camp, the fact that the shacks are made of wood, cardboard (etc.) is just incidental; if the shacks were made of plastic sheeting, it wouldn't disqualify it from being a squatter camp, would it? I also wonder if it's merely a camp full of squatters, if so it would be rfd material. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

English is usually ambiguous about the exact case/prepositional relationship between the head noun and attributive noun in N-N compound nouns. A squatter camp is easy as it is a "camp" with/for/by/of "squatters". No OneLook references other than a couple of wikis have this either. It seems quote NISoP to me.
OTOH, it seems to be a part of South African English or possibly colonial English or UK English to call it a "squatter camp". In the US it is more likely called a "squatters' camp". DCDuring TALK 18:06, 22 August 2011 (UTC)Reply