[–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

Hyphens clarify compounds, they don’t create them. Grammatically, ‘child eating’ modifies ‘pedophiles’, the head noun. Reading ‘child’ as its own noun would require ‘a child’ or a different construction, which isn’t what’s written.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    It says “stolen by child eating pedophiles”. The preposition “by” takes a noun phrase as its object.That noun phrase is “child eating pedophiles”. The head noun is clearly pedophiles. “child eating” is a modifier (a compound/participle phrase) describing those pedophiles

    Hyphenation would make it clearer, but its absence doesn’t suddenly create a new valid reading where “child” becomes a separate noun or the main object

    Gamer and yeah

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    You're interpreting a child being the subject of the statement. For this to be true, the original text would need to say 'a child'. Only then would the sentence mean there's a child going about eating paedophiles

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