English uses a lot of attributive nouns, that is, nouns used as adjectives. For example: "world peace," where "world" is a noun which describes "peace." Often, if a phrase becomes popular, the second noun is dropped. This also happens with ordinary adjectives. Below is a paragraph containing many examples of this phenomenon. See how many you can figure out using your dictionary.

I was watching a soap opera on cable television (which I have because it is so much better than broadcast television) and wishing it was a western movie when the thought struck: Will I need a physical examination to get major medical insurance? I put in my contacts contact lenses and, wearing my favorite polyester shirt/pants and high-top tennies tennis shoes, went to get a facial treatment and a perm permanent wave before my cameo appearance on Channel 2. I took my portable CD player since my little sub-compact car (which is a stick shift with air conditioning and cruise control, by the way) has no stereo system. At the studio I met a sub substitute worker wearing cords corduroy pants. We had a cup of decaf decaffeinated coffee with lo-cal low-calorie sweetener and a danish sweet roll while we discussed the taping. Afterwards, I took in a dollar matinee movie, got some take-out Chinese food and then invited some friends over for a couple of hours of penny-ante poker.

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