A friend with a young child called me the other day to ask about my understanding of compound words, since I am known as Mr. Language Guy. My friend and his son understood about words like lunchbox and kickstand and payoff, but apparently the teacher marked off because the kid had not identified two words as compound words. The words were:
Carpenter (carp enter)
Seamstress (seam stress or perhaps seams tress)
:smack:
I assured my friend that his son was right, that a word is not automatically a compound word just because it can be split into two words, and he rang off happy in the knowledge that his kid is smarter than the teacher.
I hope the kid and his parent fight for the points, if only to educate the teacher so kids in the future don’t get screwed like this. The teacher should be encouraged to crack open a dictionary, which clearly shows etymology of words, and makes clear which ones are/aren’t compound.
Songstress (and by extension, songster) actually are words, they can mean composer or singer. I also wouldn’t be surprised if doctoress and similar words just became obsolete (this actually happens in reverse on occasion, you never really hear the word seamster, it’s usually tailor for males).