I was initially puzzled by why this inversion to the interrogative isn't possible: "Is muscular necessary in the scary new world order?" But then I read your explanation and recognized I was already processing usage like this in the way that you describe.
Your explanation helped me *understand* what I was more adapting to than understanding. Thanks.
I can't imagine you'd find "Muscular is necessary" without "muscular" being introduced in the immediately preceding context. Here's a very similar example found on the web, repeating "muscular" from the previous sentence:
"First: congnitive fitness (the ability to think, remember, etc.) is somehow tied to muscles, so a healthy mind needs a healthy, muscular body.
Second: healthy and muscular is necessary, a gym is not. Muscles from walking, running, or riding a bike are perfectly fine."
But given that context, I would be fine with "Is muscular necessary?" In fact, after guessing a few adjective combinations, I found a blog post titled "Is healthy boring?" -- with no direct previous context, other than being on a blog about health. The blog then comments "healthy can feel boring" and "boring can be sexy"!
I'm wondering whether this would count as what Patrick Hanks calls an 'exploitation' (of a norm), in this case the temporary co-option of an adjective to nounhood? There's something performative about it - *acting* muscular rather than *being* muscular, cf "do angry" in this quote from novelist Deborah Harkness: “You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.”
Yes, agreed. It's exactly as you say: those words are referring to ideas.
That being the case, I believe the use of inverted commas is advisable here. Otherwise, the sentences, while not unintelligible, become somewhat harder to get one's brain around.
I was initially puzzled by why this inversion to the interrogative isn't possible: "Is muscular necessary in the scary new world order?" But then I read your explanation and recognized I was already processing usage like this in the way that you describe.
Your explanation helped me *understand* what I was more adapting to than understanding. Thanks.
I can't imagine you'd find "Muscular is necessary" without "muscular" being introduced in the immediately preceding context. Here's a very similar example found on the web, repeating "muscular" from the previous sentence:
"First: congnitive fitness (the ability to think, remember, etc.) is somehow tied to muscles, so a healthy mind needs a healthy, muscular body.
Second: healthy and muscular is necessary, a gym is not. Muscles from walking, running, or riding a bike are perfectly fine."
But given that context, I would be fine with "Is muscular necessary?" In fact, after guessing a few adjective combinations, I found a blog post titled "Is healthy boring?" -- with no direct previous context, other than being on a blog about health. The blog then comments "healthy can feel boring" and "boring can be sexy"!
Interesting examples!
I'm wondering whether this would count as what Patrick Hanks calls an 'exploitation' (of a norm), in this case the temporary co-option of an adjective to nounhood? There's something performative about it - *acting* muscular rather than *being* muscular, cf "do angry" in this quote from novelist Deborah Harkness: “You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.”
Yes, agreed. It's exactly as you say: those words are referring to ideas.
That being the case, I believe the use of inverted commas is advisable here. Otherwise, the sentences, while not unintelligible, become somewhat harder to get one's brain around.