Adverbs

“well-qualified buyers” vs. “well qualified buyers”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Hyphens, Versus

I saw the phrase with the hyphen last night in an Acura advertisement on television.

Problem:
These two phrases have different meanings, but many people do not appreciate the difference.

Explanation:
The phrase “well qualified buyers” without the hyphen is equivalent to “well, qualified buyers” — with a comma and a space between the word “well” and the word “qualified”.

The word “well” in this hyphen-free phrase is an adjective, as in “He is a well man.”

In contrast, the word “well” is an adverb in the hyphenated modifier “well-qualified”.

In other words, “well” is modifying the word “qualified”, which on its own acts as an adjective, as in “qualified participants”.

One should typically NOT use a hyphen between an adverb and an adjective when together they form an adverb-adjective modifier of a noun.

However, when an adverb can also act as an adjective, and “well” is just such a word, one must put a hyphen between the adverb and the adjective to form the adverb-adjective modifier of a noun and thereby avoid possible confusion about whether the first word is an adverb or an adjective.

The word “more” is like the word “well” in that “more” can be either an adjective or an adverb.

  • An example of “more” as an adjective can be found in “more attractive women” — with a space between “more” and “attractive”. A synonym for this example is “additional attractive women”.
  • An example of “more” as an adverb can be found in “more-attractive women” — with a hyphen between “more” and “attractive”. A synonym for this example is “women who are more attractive”.

Solution:
The word “well” acts as an ADVERB in “well-qualified buyers” — with a hyphen between “well” and “qualified” — to form an adverb-adjective modifier of the noun “buyers”.

The word “well” acts as an ADJECTIVE in “well qualified buyers” — with a space between “well” and “qualified” — so that each of the words “well” and “qualified” individually modifies the noun “buyers”.

“return back”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation, Verbs

I heard this on television yesterday.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “return back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The verb “return” means to go back, so the meaning of “return back” would be to go back back.

Because the “re” in “return” means back, one could argue that someone who “returns back” would never reach the intended destination.

For fun, I searched Google for the expression “return back” (with the quotation marks) and got about 2,490,000 matches. This is depressing.

Solution:
“return”

“… all of which I use alot, …”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Nouns, Verbs

I saw this in a comment at EngadgetMobile.com.

Problem:
The word “alot” — spelled A-L-O-T — is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The comment writer was referring to cell-phone functions that he uses often, not a little.

So he should have written “a lot” — spelled A-space-L-O-T — instead.

The two-word, adverbial phrase “a lot” means to a great extent or degree.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks to avoid hyphenated forms) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “a lot” — with a space after the letter “a” — 640,000,000 matches
  • “alot” — with no space — 129,000,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the adverbial phrase correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 4.96-to-1, which is dreadful.

Note: The adverbial phrase “a lot” should not be confused with the verb “allot” — spelled A-L-L-O-T — which means to apportion, to appropriate, or to dedicate.

Solution:
“… all of which I use a lot, …” — with a space between the indirect article “a” and the noun “lot”