Adjectives

“… as a separate business at arm’s-length from …”

Adjectives, Hyphens

I saw this in a message from a company.

Problem:
The hyphen does not belong in this phrase.

Explanation:
The company in question was announcing that it had agreed to exchange some assets with another company.

The company stated in its announcement that the deal had not been approved by regulators.

So the company was emphasizing to readers that it would have to continue to operate as if the deal had never been made.

“At arm’s length” — with no hyphen — is the phrase that essentially describes a business/legal relationship in which the two parties make sure that they treat one another in the same way that they would treat other competitors.

While it is true that “arm’s length” must be hyphenated to form a compound modifier of a noun — as in “an arm’s-length transaction” — it makes no sense to insert a hyphen in the phrase “at arm’s length from”.

I believe that attorneys were involved in approving the aforementioned company’s announcement and that these attorneys included the hyphen between “arm’s” and “length” because they are very accustomed to using these two words to modify a noun.

Solution:
“… as a separate business at arm’s length from …”

“Thank-You For Your Business!”

Adjectives, Hyphens, Imperatives

My wife and I saw this at the bottom of an invoice a few weeks ago.

Beyond noticing that the preposition “For” should not have been capitalized, we both had a gut reaction to the hyphen in “Thank-You”.

The reaction was that the hyphenated form of the imperative “Thank You” felt like something that we used to see a few decades ago.

Of course, she or I today would use the hyphenated “Thank-You” when those two words together modify a noun, as in “Thank-You Cards”.

But neither of us would hyphenate “Thank You” when using those two words as an imperative (in, say, a headline).

I saw no matches when I searched Google for the use of the hyphenated “thank-you” as an imperative, but I admit that it was not a very deep search.

What I now wonder is whether the hyphenated imperative form in my wife’s and my memories comes from seeing typesetters’ mistakes or is based on a style that has gone out of favor.

Do you recall seeing the hyphenated imperative “Thank-You” years ago?

Do you believe that this form was a mistake or that it was a commonly accepted form?

Please let me know, and I will elaborate on this topic in a future post.

“a quality-built Ford”

Adjectives

I heard this on TV the other day.

Problem:
The modifier “quality-built” is truly meaningless.

Explanation:
I heard “a quality-built Ford” spoken by a narrator during a television commercial run by Ford the other day.

When I blogged two months ago about “a quality product”, I pointed out that the word “quality” was meaningless in that phrase.

Ford was trying to say that it makes high-quality vehicles.

But “high-quality-built” is awkward.

The solution comes from appreciating that high-quality vehicles are vehicles that are built well.

Solution:
“a well-built Ford”