I think movie titles are a fun way to test your grammar skills. Being an avid fan of movies, I thought perhaps I should touch on this as part of my e-learning contribution.
The poster is a famous epic starring Mel Gibson which nabbed a couple of Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. It's also one of my all-time favourite movies. What does the title Braveheart mean to you? And what kind of word class does it belong to?
If you look up the dictionary (I chose the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary available online), the word does not exist.
Here's my take on this. "Braveheart" is actually two separate words, i.e. brave and heart denoting a person who is courageous and therefore has 'a heart that is brave'. If analysed separately, brave can be either an adjective (showing no fear), a verb (to deal with a difficult situation) or a noun (a young Native American warrior - considered an old-fashioned term and offensive) and heart is a noun which may denote several meanings such as the organ, emotions, bravery, etc.
Therefore, is the word "Braveheart" considered a compound word? That's food for thought. Any comments are much appreciated.
Picture courtesy of http://www.allposters.com/
~ Shameem
Interesting thought, Shameem. I guess I must be one of the few people who have never watched this movie (though I know what it's about). I'm sure the word takes its meaning from its two constituent parts "brave" and "heart". Would it be considered a name of some sort?
ReplyDeleteSorry for the extremely late reply Dr. Tang but yes, I do agree. It does sound like a name of some sort, perhaps even a 'title' to describe the hero of the movie. :)
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