Are comparative compounds hyphenated?
ji...@erols.com
I had thought that adverb plus adjective/participle compounds in
which the first word was a comparative or superlative were not
hyphenated, e.g.,
ill-fitting dress
but better fitting dress
but I see that no less an authority than the Chicago Manual lists better,
lesser, least, along with well, ill, etc. in taking a hyphen. Am I
missing something or does anyone know what the preferred usage is?
Charles A. Lee
On Mon, 01 Sep 1997 23:36:08 -0700, "ji...@erols.com" <ji...@erols.com>
wrote:
>...ill-fitting dress
> but better fitting dress..... Am I
>missing something or does anyone know what the preferred usage is?
As Karen Elizabeth Gordon, former college English professor, explains
in her excellent book, The Well-Tempered Sentence, "a hyphen is not
used when a compound adjective comes after the noun or when the first
word is an adverb ending in -ly.
"The mannerism was well studied."
Here's the technical explanation for the reason hyphenation is needed
in the first place; master that and you have it all.
Rule: Only an adverb may modify an adjective. When other non-adverb
words change the meaning of an adjective, or combine to form a
compound term, they are combined and hyphenated.
Examples:
1) A foolishly open window
Noun: window. Adjective: open. Adverb: foolishly - modifying open.
No hyphen required.
2) The big red bus. Noun: bus. Adjectives: big and red. These
adjectives independently modify bus, not each other (the redness is
not big), so no hyphen is needed.
3) The big pinkish-red bus.
Here, the adjective "pinkish" changes red. Since pinkish is not an
adverb, it must be combined with red to form a compound adjective.
4) An all-is-well outlook.
Noun: outlook. Three non-adverb parts of speech combine to form a
compound adjective.
5) An equally well-chosen answer.
Noun: answer. Compound adjective: chosen and well; here the adjective
"well" does not independently modify answer (unlike the big red bus)
so well-chosen is combined and hyphenated. Once the compound adjective
is established, the adverb "equally" modifies it directly and requires
no hyphen.
Your example "better-fitting dress," like example 5, follows the rule.
Better does not independently modify dress. It is not a better dress.
It's the fit that's better. Since better is not an adverb, the two
words are hyphenated to become a compound adjective.
One final note: The single most confusing thing about this rule is
that many words have both an adverb and adjective form (well, for
example). Once you correctly understand the modifier's part of speech,
the rule allows the hyphens (or the lack thereof) to fall into place
easily.
Charles A. Lee
=====================================================
= "Nobody goes there any more - it's too crowded." =
= - Yogi Berra =
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Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
In article <340c6c4a....@news.concentric.net>,
>5) An equally well-chosen answer.
>Noun: answer. Compound adjective: chosen and well; here the adjective
>"well" does not independently modify answer (unlike the big red bus)
>It's the fit that's better. Since better is not an adverb, the two
>words are hyphenated to become a compound adjective.
>One final note: The single most confusing thing about this rule is
>that many words have both an adverb and adjective form (well, for
>example). Once you correctly understand the modifier's part of speech,
>the rule allows the hyphens (or the lack thereof) to fall into place
>easily.
I thought this was going really well until I hit paragraph 5. I'm sure part of
your response must be in the final paragraph, but it doesn't satisfy me.
How can you say that the "well" of "well-chosen answer" is an adjective? Have
you ever heard of a well answer? I know "well" can be an adjective, but, in my
mind, only in its sense of "not ill".
Similarly for "better" in "better-fitting". Seems to me that, although
"better" is the comparative form of the adjective "good", here it is the
comparative form of the adverb "well". It answers the question "how or to what
degree" the dress fits. There is such a thing as a better dress, but you would
have to write that phrase as "a better, fitting dress" (if you could write it
at all). If it modifies an adjective, I was taught, it's an adverb.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Chris Malcolm
>As Karen Elizabeth Gordon, former college English professor, explains
>in her excellent book, The Well-Tempered Sentence, "a hyphen is not
>used when a compound adjective comes after the noun or when the first
>word is an adverb ending in -ly.
>Here's the technical explanation for the reason hyphenation is needed
>in the first place; master that and you have it all.
>Rule: Only an adverb may modify an adjective. When other non-adverb
>words change the meaning of an adjective, or combine to form a
>compound term, they are combined and hyphenated.
There is a different and simpler rule which comes to the same usages,
which is that hyphens should be used in cases where their omission
would, strictly speaking, permit ambiguity. By "strictly speaking" I
mean that the ambiguity matters even in those cases where some people
would say "but only an idiot would imagine that the phrase should be
interpreted like that". This rule has the advantage over the grammatical
rule that it fails gracefully, i.e., you are most likely to get it wrong
in cases where it doesn't matter.
--
Chris Malcolm c...@dai.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK DoD #205
Robert M. Wilson
In article <340BB3...@erols.com>, "ji...@erols.com" <ji...@erols.com> wrote:
>I had thought that adverb plus adjective/participle compounds in
>which the first word was a comparative or superlative were not
>hyphenated, e.g.,
> ill-fitting dress
> but better fitting dress
>but I see that no less an authority than the Chicago Manual lists better,
Some authorities advise that compound modifiers should be hyphenated,
particularly if used before the word, as in:
"second-class effort", "well-known athlete", but usually "his grades were
second class" or the athlete was well known." So, to be consistent,
"better-fitting dress" would be the choice although I would not object to your
usage.
I suspect that this follows the way in which the words are emphasized.