ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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Since there are no coherent general standards on hyphenation, every place I've worked has deferred to a specific dictionary on stuff like this. (Which was a real surprise when I was grocery cashier.) In the US, I'm guessing most would tend toward "sixfold," but who knows about elsewhere.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link

do what any real sub would do. say "sixfold strikes me as wrong. It seems like a lot. Can't be right. I'll make it say "four times".

― stet (stet), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link

lol. i often take that out, although to be honest, after i while even i start to rebel against flattening people's texts completely. people keep throwing the same mistakes at you over and over, and you start to forget what's actually a mistake.

xpost
no dissertations, thanks :)

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Doesn't the Graun style guide say that hyphens gradually disappear as the hyphenless form becomes more acceptable so, if in doubt, don't hyphenate? I don't think I'd hyphen tenfold, for example, but if it was anythingelsefold I'd try to find a more attractive way of putting it.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Ah, here's what I was after:

Our style is to use one word wherever possible, including some instances where a word might be hyphenated by other publications. Hyphens tend to clutter up text (particularly when the computer breaks already hyphenated words at the end of lines).
Inventions, ideas and new concepts often begin life as two words, then become hyphenated, before finally becoming accepted as one word. Why wait? "Wire-less" and "down-stairs" were once hyphenated. In pursuit of this it is preferable to go further than Collins does in many cases: eg trenchcoat is two words in Collins but one under our style; words such as handspring, madhouse and talkshow should all be one word, not two words, and not hyphenated.
Do use hyphens where not using one would be ambiguous, eg to distinguish "black-cab drivers come under attack" from "black cab-drivers come under attack".
Do not use after adverbs ending in -ly, eg politically naive, wholly owned, but hyphens are needed with short and common adverbs, eg ill-prepared report, hard-bitten hack, much-needed grammar lesson, well-established principle of style (note though that in the construction "the principle of style is well established" there is no need to hyphenate).
Finally, do use hyphens to form compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal, 19th-century artist.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm guessing the adverb/adjective thing breaks down like this:

sixfold = adverb e.g. "Their numbers increased sixfold."
six-fold = adjective e.g. "This is a six-fold napkin." (I don't know what a "six-fold napkin" is, I just made something up.)

___fold = one word, whereas "six-fold" is just two words crammed together that you use as an adjective to describe something that has six folds in it.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 8 February 2007 01:15 (seventeen years ago) link

nice try. don't think the world's grammarians will be rewriting their style books just yet :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 8 February 2007 09:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Actually, a quick look at the dictionary shows that "sixfold" is a word. No need for hyphenation at all.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 8 February 2007 09:15 (seventeen years ago) link

"the dictionary". which one? chambers? oxford? you'll find discrepancies.

i don't just make this shit up, you know :(

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:18 (seventeen years ago) link

It's in Webster's 11th, which is my bible at this job.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:23 (seventeen years ago) link

depressing to read this thread. i always think i know english grammar pretty well. :-(

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Once any dictionary says something can be one word and not hyphenated, I take that as carte blanche to switch.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:27 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't be bothered with cartes.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:35 (seventeen years ago) link

They're quite fun when you put them before the horsee.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link

ts: ground ball vs groundball vs ground-ball

― Elsa Svitborg (tracerhand), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't just make this shit up, you know :(

cof cof cof

― stet (stet), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:44 (seventeen years ago) link

fu cof

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 8 February 2007 21:29 (seventeen years ago) link

In light of our conversation about "bigged up" vs. "big-upped," here's a headline from ILX sponsor Paper Thin Walls:

Staying white and nerdy: Pop parodist Weird Al bigs Youtube up for his Grammy nominated album Straight Outta Lynwood.

Maybe for the same reason I prefer "big-upped" to "bigged up" (i.e., I'm thinking of "big up" as a singular unit), this strikes me as all kinds of wrong. Surely it should be "Weird Al big-ups YouTube"? But I also get the logic behind this -- they're simply treating "big up" like other multi-word verbs like "take up" (there's nothing off about "Weird Al takes YouTube up on its offer to do a weekly video"). Still, though.

(Also, "Weird Al" should be in quotes, but that's his own personal style.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Grammy-nominated as well ;-)

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:48 (seventeen years ago) link

My pet peeve: the use of "mic" instead of "mike" for microphone. What the fuck? Bicycle has no K, but you don't ride your "bic." Bic is a PEN, pronounced "bick," and "mic," whenever I see it, is pronounced "mick" in my head. SO STUPID.
As copy-editor of a small music-related publication, I buck the tide. And I'm not alone. Small islands of rightness exist in the prevailing sea of wrong.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:01 (seventeen years ago) link

I hate "mike" for microphone, but I don't think argue against it with counterexamples -- it's just an aesthetic choice, like how "Internet" still looks weird when I see it lowercase, even though I use "website" (lowercase, one word) all the time.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Jaymc, I DEFENDED YOU ON THE LOST THREAD!!!! I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM HEARING THIS FROM YOU!!!!

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link

MIC IS ICK.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:08 (seventeen years ago) link

I'M PSYCHED FOR MIKE.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link

read: "I don't think I can argue against it..."

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay okay. I forgive. Just let me carry on a bit more.
"Mic" has no "e" to indicate a long "i," for one. It CAN'T, because that would make it MICE. You can't make a microphone out of a mouse just by taking away its "e!"

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:12 (seventeen years ago) link

I believe, though my husband disagrees, that "mic" is a recent development. I could SWEAR that I grew up reading "mike."

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Tone-Loc
Jean-Luc Godard

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link

You're right about "mike" predating "mic," though: the former is dated to 1924 and the latter to 1961, according to Webster's.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha! Thank you.
Rappers have a tradition of misspellings that would be ludicrous if pronounced phonetically. Flavor-Flav? That's always bugged me. FLAVE, dude!
And the French? They spell everything wrong.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Other musicians are unable to spell their names right—not just rappers.
Suzzy Roche? Rhymes with "scuzzy?"
Neneh Cherry? That sounds like a schoolyard taunt.
For Fuck's sake, people.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:21 (seventeen years ago) link

And atheletes! Picabo Street!
She RUINED an entire Winter Olympic for me.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm so upset at the memory that I can't spell athlete.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh god, everyone has fled the thread because they don't want to slip and fall on all the mouth-froth.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:27 (seventeen years ago) link

lol our prose just ain't as purple as yours

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:42 (seventeen years ago) link

The only one that gets me is "micing," like in "We found Hannett in the other room, micing up the kick drum" -- in that case I actually do imagine the person with a bucket full of little mice, setting them on drum heads and stuffing them in amplifiers.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh Lordy, that reminds me of "chicest."

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link

the use of "mic" instead of "mike" for microphone.

It's not "mic" it's "mic." -- a contraction used on the labels on mixing desks etc. And I'll proclaim that real-style on the em aye cee

― stet (stet), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:39 (seventeen years ago) link

mic.ing

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Anthony Microphonecio

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

"My and John's landlord has asked us to forward the following advert" sounds wrong.

"Our Landlord (John and I) has asked us to forward the following advert" is rubbish.

"The landlord of John and I has asked us to forward the following advert" sound grammatical but pretentious.

What to do?

― caek, Monday, 5 March 2007 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link

I think the first and last are correct but the first sounds best.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 5 March 2007 16:56 (seventeen years ago) link

John and I have been asked by our landlord to forward ...

― .stet., Monday, 5 March 2007 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link

'Mine and John's landlord' sounds good to me.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Take away "and John's" though and "Mine Landlord" sounds completely ridiculous.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:30 (seventeen years ago) link

So don't take it away!

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link

It would be "the landlord of John and me" (not that that's the option I'd go for). I'd go with stet's suggestion

― Maria :D, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link

or "of John and mine"

― Maria :D, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link

John's and my landlord? Oh, crap. Just use his name. Who cares if people know that he/she's your landlord. Or John's.

― Beth Parker, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Our landlord has asked John and me to forward the following advert...

― Maria :D, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

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