To hypnenate or not to hyphenate?

[Jennifer Murphy]

Which is correct:

a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?

b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?

and why?

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:29:52 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
wrote:

The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Jennifer Murphy]

On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:17:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
wrote:

>On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:29:52 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
>wrote:
>
>>Which is correct:
>>
>>a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?
>>
>>b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?
>>
>>and why?
>
>The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.

So the rule is whenever two words together form an adjective, they get
hyphenated?

What about: "What city in the world is the fastest-growing?"?

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:20:07 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>

wrote:

>On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:17:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:29:52 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Which is correct:
>>>
>>>a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?
>>>
>>>b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?
>>>
>>>and why?
>>
>>The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.
>
>So the rule is whenever two words together form an adjective, they get
>hyphenated?

Yes.

>What about: "What city in the world is the fastest-growing?"?

There you can drop the hyphen, or change the order:

Which city in the world is growing fastest?

[Jennifer Murphy]

On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:36:12 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>

wrote:

>On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:20:07 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
>wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:17:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:29:52 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>Which is correct:
>>>>
>>>>a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?
>>>>
>>>>b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?
>>>>
>>>>and why?
>>>
>>>The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.
>>
>>So the rule is whenever two words together form an adjective, they get
>>hyphenated?
>
>Yes.
>
>>What about: "What city in the world is the fastest-growing?"?
>
>There you can drop the hyphen, or change the order:
>
>Which city in the world is growing fastest?

I worded it the way I did on purpose.

In the sentence,

Which city in the world is the fastest growing?

is "fastest growing" not an adjective?

[Jerry Friedman]

The /Chicago Manual of Style/ prefers "fastest-growing", and I
completely agree. See "adverb not ending in /ly/ + participle or
adjective" at

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/images/ch07_tab01.pdf

However, the form without the hyphen is more common at Google Books.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+fastest-growing%2Cthe+fastest+growing&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

http://tinyurl.com/ajwrl8z

--
Jerry Friedman

[annily]

I think it is, and I would hyphenate it there too.

--
Lifelong resident of Adelaide, South Australia

[Stan Brown]

On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:20:07 -0800, Jennifer Murphy wrote:
>
> On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:17:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:29:52 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>Which is correct:
> >>
> >>a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?
> >>
> >>b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?
> >>
> >>and why?
> >
> >The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.
>
> So the rule is whenever two words together form an adjective, they get
> hyphenated?

No.

> What about: "What city in the world is the fastest-growing?"?

No.

--
"The difference between the /almost right/ word and the /right/ word
is ... the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
--Mark Twain
Stan Brown, Tompkins County, NY, USA http://OakRoadSystems.com

[Skitt]

Jennifer Murphy wrote:
> Steve Hayes wrote:
>> Jennifer Murphy wrote:
>>> Steve Hayes wrote:

>>>> Jennifer Murphy wrote:

>>>>> Which is correct:
>>>>>
>>>>> a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?
>>>>>
>>>>> b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?
>>>>>
>>>>> and why?
>>>>
>>>> The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.
>>>
>>> So the rule is whenever two words together form an adjective, they get
>>> hyphenated?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> What about: "What city in the world is the fastest-growing?"?
>>
>> There you can drop the hyphen, or change the order:
>>
>> Which city in the world is growing fastest?
>
> I worded it the way I did on purpose.
>
> In the sentence,
>
> Which city in the world is the fastest growing?
>
> is "fastest growing" not an adjective?
>

Read the first section at
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/compounds.htm
--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://home.comcast.net/~skitt99/main.html

[R H Draney]

Stan Brown filted:

>
>On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:20:07 -0800, Jennifer Murphy wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:17:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:29:52 -0800, Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid>
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>Which is correct:
>> >>
>> >>a. What's the fastest growing city in the world?
>> >>
>> >>b. What's the fastest-growing city in the world?
>> >>
>> >>and why?
>> >
>> >The second, because "fastest-growing" is used as an adkective.
>>
>> So the rule is whenever two words together form an adjective, they get
>> hyphenated?
>
>No.

Well, yes, but that's not the point here...that rule governs the change from the
unhyphenated "He teaches in high school" to "He's a high-school teacher"....

>> What about: "What city in the world is the fastest-growing?"?
>
>No.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain....

If the two adjectives are separated by a space (or a comma), it means they're
two separate (but possibly related) descriptions of the noun they modify...in
this case, "fastest growing city" refers to a city that's growing, and a city
that's fastest (maybe New York, with a population that's increasing slowly but
steadily over time, is a faster city than Winnemucca, Nevada, with a slower pace
of life that may be growing very quickly)....

With the two words joined by a hyphen, "fastest" is instead an adverb that
modifies "growing"....

So the question is what you want to know about the city...is it:

(1) This city is growing faster than any other in the world.

or:

(2) This is the fastest city in the world among all cities that are growing.

Chances are it's the first of these two that Jennifer is interested in, which is
expressed by sample sentence b...in the less likely event that she wants meaning
number 2, sample sentence a would be correct....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[Skitt]

R H Draney wrote:
> Stan Brown filted:

>> Jennifer Murphy wrote:
>>> Steve Hayes wrote:

You misunderstood what Stan meant. He meant that there is no such rule
as Jennifer stated.

He also disagreed with the creation of a sentence-ending compound word.
He was right on both counts.

See my other post in this thread, where I gave a link to Dr. Darling's
views that explain the matter better than I could.

[Joe Fineman]

As you have no doubt noticed, usage varies, and so do rules. In my
career as a copyeditor, I have enforced some pretty silly ones. The
usual practice for this example is to hyphenate it when it stands
before the noun, but not in predicate.

"Growing", here, is an adjective (in the broad sense of something that
can modify a noun). "Fastest" is an adverb (in the broad sense); here
it modifies "growing". Ordinarily, when an adverb precedes & modifies
an adjective, and the adverb is a word that can only be an adverb, no
hyphen is needed: "rapidly growing city". However, there is a
fair-size set of English words that can be either adjectives or
adverbs; "fastest" is one; some others are "well", "still", "kindly",
and "worse". It mildly improves readability if those are hyphenated
when the adjective precedes the noun. However, the
when-in-doubt-leave-it-out school would write "fastest growing city"
on the ground that no-one could possibly think that it meant "fastest
city that is growing".

Some stylists, of the kind who delight in behaving like badly
programmed computers, draw the line, not between adverbs that can and
cannot be adjectives, but between adverbs that do not and do end in
"-ly" -- I presume because that rule requires less thought to enforce
it. They would write "a kindly meant remark" and "an often-heard
remark", whereas for sensible people IMO it is the other way around.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Here's to the fizziness that gets us from busyness to :||
||: fuzziness! :||

[Stan Brown]

On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:40:39 -0800, Skitt wrote:
> You misunderstood what Stan meant. He meant that there is no such rule
> as Jennifer stated.
>
> He also disagreed with the creation of a sentence-ending compound
> word.

+1

[Jennifer Murphy]

On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:59:03 -0500, Joe Fineman <jo...@verizon.net>
wrote:

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. But I'm not sure my high school
English teacher would approve of a rule that "just makes sense". ;-) She
was a rather severe purist.