Hyphens

“It’s about 25 foot tall.”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Hyphens, Nouns

I heard a caller say this on the radio during a gardening show this morning.

Problem:
The noun “foot” is incorrect in the caller’s statement.

Explanation:
The caller was describing the height of a tree to the gardening-show host.

The caller said, “It’s about 25 foot tall.”

It is correct to use the singular noun “foot” when hyphenating it with a number to form a compound modifier of another noun.

Here are some examples in which a number is hyphenated with a singular noun such as “foot” to form a compound modifier of the subsequent noun:

  • 25-foot wave
  • 24-inch level
  • 5-mile run
  • 3-layer fabric
  • 100-foot hose

However, the word “tall” is not a noun except in a vernacular specifically related to describing clothing, so “It’s about 25-foot tall.”, in which we put a hyphen between “25” and “foot”, is not the solution to the problem in the hyphen-free sentence “It’s about 25 foot tall.”

The only acceptable value for “X” in the hyphen-free sentence “It’s about X foot tall.” is a value of one or less, as in:

  • “It’s about one foot tall.”
  • “It’s about 0.7 foot tall.”
  • “It’s about 0.1 foot tall.”

The reason for this is that the word “tall” in all of these sentences is an adjective that indicates the directional dimension to which the speaker is referring.

In other words, all of these sentences are answers to the question “How tall is it?”, and the word “tall” can be dropped from the preceding three sentences without harming the meaning:

  • “It’s about one foot.”
  • “It’s about 0.7 foot.”
  • “It’s about 0.1 foot.”

Given that “It’s about 25 foot.” would be an incorrectly formed sentence because “25” should be followed by a plural noun instead of a singular noun, we arrive at the solution to the problem.

Solution:
“It’s about 25 feet tall.”

“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”.

“Powerful plant base cleaner”

Common English Blunders, Hyphens, Verbs

I saw this in a television commercial for Arm & Hammer “Essentials” cleaner.

Problems:
1. One of the words should be in past-participle form.
2. A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
The advertising copywriter was promoting the environmentally friendly and non-harsh nature of the cleaner.

So the copywriter was trying to say that the cleaner was derived from or based on plants.

This gives us the solution to the first problem: The writer should have used the past participle “based” — spelled B-A-S-E-D — instead of the word “base” — spelled B-A-S-E.

Also, the copywriter was modifying the noun “cleaner” with two words in a compound fashion.

This gives us the solution to the second problem: The writer should have put a hyphen instead of a space after the word “plant”.

Both of these problems — not recognizing the need for a past participle nor the need for a hyphen — are, unfortunately, common English blunders.

Solution:
“Powerful plant-based cleaner”