Say goodbye to dark circles with instant age rewind eraser concealer from

Maybelline, New York. That's the sound of the concealer that does it all. Click to

conceal, correct, and contour. Available in 18 shades with up to 12 hour

moisturizing wear. No mess, no fuss with the built-in sponge tip. One swipe

application for crease-resistant coverage with over 100,000 five-star ratings.

It's as easy as click and done. Learn more at Maybelline.com.

You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. A compound word consists of two words

that are put together to express one idea. Like the word houseboat is made up

of two words, house and boat. Same with steamboat. And both of these specify a

particular kind of boat. But there are a few compound words in English that

work differently. A scarecrow, for example, is in a type of crow and a pickpocket

is in a type of pocket. And words like scarecrow and pickpocket belong to a

small category of compounds that name people and things by describing what they

do. And the interesting thing is that centuries ago there was a real

fashion for forming words like this. And it was a whole lot of fun like a quake

breach. Can you guess what a quake breach is? Somebody who's shaking in their

boots? Yes, yes. They're a coward or a saddle goose. What about a saddle goose?

Somebody who's a bad horse rider? Well, somebody who's a fool who's silly

enough to try to saddle a goose. If you've had experience with geese, it's not

so easy. And Brienne Hughes is a linguist who spent years studying this

category of words. Technically, they're called agentive and instrumental

...