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determines hyphens for a compound adjective depending on where it appears in the sentence.
e.g.
'black-and-white stripes'
but
'stripes of black and white'
(i.e. hyphens if the compound adjectival modifier is before the noun and no hyphens if it is after).
That's a new one to me.
Phil
On 7 Jan 2011, at 05:43, Tim J. Slager wrote:
> I remember being scolded by my managing editor many years ago: Never hyphenate between an adverb and the adjective it modifies! It's a common mistake. The adverb cannot modify a noun, so it has to modify the adjective.
>
> The rule (which varies depending on style preferences) is only for compound adjectives and adjective-noun combinations. Many style preferences, though, require the hyphen only when the combination could be misinterpreted without it. (Eg. high school student. Is the school student high? Or does the student attend high school?)
>
> tims
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+tslager=isdcorporation -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tslager=isdcorporation -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Richard Mateosian
> Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2011 4:31 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Re: Common grammar question
>
> This rule may be too broad, depending on what you mean by "serving as
> a single adjective." If I say that Macbeth is a deeply flawed
> character, I certainly don't need a hyphen. Or here's one I often see
> hyphenated, but I wouldn't: His operation ran like a well oiled
> machine. ...RM
>
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Susan W Gallagher <susanwg -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
>> "use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before
>> a noun" from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/576/1/
>
> --
>
> Richard Mateosian <xrm -at- pacbell -dot- net>
> Berkeley, California
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