You ever see the old Batman movie with Adam West?
Remember the part where he's dangling from the helicopter and Robin dips him into the San Francisco Bay and a shark immediately latches onto his leg?
And remember he calls for "Bat shark-repellent"?
Or is it "Bat-shark repellent"?
If it's the former, then Batman's asking Robin for a shark repellent that also works on bats; if it's the latter, then it's a repellent for a breed of fish known as a "bat-shark."
Either way, neither makes much sense.
Showing posts with label compound modifiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compound modifiers. Show all posts
bat shark-repellent or bat-shark repellent
hyphen compound modifier
Remember those wacky compound modifiers? No? Well, they're back!
Last time we wrote that compound adverbs ending in -ly are usually left open (unhyphenated) and that people frequently make the mistake of hyphenating them. This time we're writing about a similar error:
When compound adjectives follow a noun, they're usually left open, too.
For example, instead of writing that the strict policemen was a by-the-book Commissioner, we could say,
The Commissioner did things by the book.We don't hyphenate "by the book" in this case because it follows the noun Commissioner.
But when we're going over the rules and their (many) exceptions, we like to know why the exception is made. Unfortunately our guide, Merriam Webster's Manual for Writers & Editors, doesn't offer an explanation; it simply says,
When a compound adjective follows the noun it modifies, it usually ceases to be a unit modifier and is therefore no longer hyphenated.That doesn't help much, or...at all. And it gets even more confusing in the next part, where it says,
However, a compound that follows the noun it modifies often keeps its hyphen if it continues to function as a unit modifier, especially if its first element is a noun.Huh?
Clearly our style guide is a victim of substance abuse.
So we looked at the examples our guide used:
instructions that guide you step by stepThese fell under the first category--when the compound ceased to be a unit modifier. The compounds that continued to function as a unit modifier were,
a list that was longer than expected
hikers who were ill-advised to cross the glacierWhat's the difference? We're still not entirely sure, but we did notice that when we removed the hyphen from the second set of examples, they read differently--at least more differently than the examples from the first set. For instance, when the hyphen is removed from the modifier in
an actor too high-strung to relax
industries that could be called low-tech
hikers who were ill advised to cross the glacierthe compound isn't quite as clear as when the hyphen is removed from the sentence,
a list that was longer than expectedWe asked our boss, and his rules were "for multiple hyphens [that is, compounds that are three or more words such as "larger-than-life," step-by-step," etc.], there's no hyphen after the noun." But you "keep the hyphen after the noun if the first word is a noun or is a cliche."
This isn't quite what the style guide recommends, and its examples--Ill-advised, High-strung, and Low-tech--don't begin with nouns but are still hyphenated, so we're not ready to follow thems rules.
Then again, we can't offer a hard-and-fast rule or a rule that is both hard and fast as to when you hyphenate and when you don't. This looks to be one of those instances when the rules of grammar overlap into obscenity--that is, you know it when you see it: You know when the hyphen should go there and when it should not.
Sort of a cop-out, but then again we warned ya: Them compound modifiers is wacky.
hyphens ly words
You don't know it, your friends don't know it, even Ms. Glorthropp--your 12-grade English teacher who used to mark you down for not stapling your papers on a 45-degree angle--doesn't know it.
When do you hyphenate compound words?
The big reason most folks don't know it is that there are way too damn many rules for when to hyphenate and when not to hyphenate--to give you an idea, our handbook has 11 pages on the topic--plus, exceptions to the rules are everywhere.
We could never hope to cover all of them in one meager post, but there is a rule we'd like to touch on that's very frequently overlooked: Don't hyphenate -ly adverbs.
Compounds made up of an adverb ending in -ly -- such as "environmentally friendly cleaner," "highly motivated worker," "privately owned land," among many others -- are usually left open.
Why? We've been hard-pressed to find the be-all end-all explanation, but according to most grammarians we've read, it's because the -ly already implies the hyphen, making one redundant.
But letters don't stand in for punctuation marks anywhere else, so we don't grasp why an exception is made in this case.
We concede that compound modifiers with -ly adverbs are usually unambiguous -- and since the purpose of the hyphen is to provide clarity, it does seem a bit redundant in this case. And we acknowledge that exceptions are often made for familiar compounds, such as "high school prom" and "real estate agent" -- but what is clear and familiar to us may not be so to another reader -- and since there's no definite rule on when to hyphenate and when not to hyphenate, it's one of those iffy grammar rules that drives everyone crazy -- which is precisely why Ms. Glorthropp gave up on it and instead got out her protractor.
F@&ing Compound Modifiers
We placed our setups in 60'-plus semicirclesWe: We don't like this apostrophe, but we're not sure if it should be Feet or Foot.
Our Boss: That's why I put the apostrophe there instead.
We: But what should it be?
Our Boss: I don't know--that's why I put the apostrophe there instead.
We: We're going to find out--and we're gonna change it.
Our Boss: Go ahead, I'll stet it anyway.
We: If you do, it'll be the most shameful stet you'll ever make.
Turns out it should be "foot" because it's a compound modifier. What's a compound modifier? About $1.50! Ha ha!
But seriously, compound modifiers are those confusing multi-word adjectival or adverbial phrases with all the hyphens, like longer-lasting or step-by-step or state-of-the-art, that everyone pretty much ignores. In fact, if it weren't for Roger Ebert pointing out their misuse in movie titles, no one would even know about them.
When you're dealing with modifiers that use units of measurement, like we are in the phrase 60'-plus, the unit is always singular--so inch instead of inches, hour instead of hours, and, in our example, foot instead of feet.
So we rewrite the sentence as
We placed our setups in 60-foot-plus semicircles
