Maryn, who enjoys muddying the waters
Hm, so why would you guys leave off the hyphen after "three". That looks... wrong to me. The "three" is part of the compound, isn't it?The three thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.How many spearheads? How old are they?
The three-thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.
I realize the original example, with story singular, isn't ambiguous in the same way as this example, but is ambiguity the only consideration?
I wasn't quite clear, sorry. Actually, in my reading of the sentence, there is no ambiguity in:The three thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.
You guys are making my head spin!
Two points:
1. The matter of using numerals like 3000 or written-out numbers like three thousand is a totally different issue.
2. As for the original question and some of its spin-offs, it is really a matter of clarity. You do not need to go beyond that in hyphenation.
If I were talking about spearheads that are 3000 years old, I would do it this way:
*The three-thousand year old spearheads were hard to find.*
The sentence is unambiguous unless someone wants to be argumentative and claim that it could theoretically be interpreted as:
*The three thousand year-old spearheads* (each one is one year old).
If you want complete lack of even theoretical ambiguity, you simply have to hyphenate everything:
*The three-thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.*
When you deal with problems like this, you have gone beyond rules of grammar and spelling, and you have to use good sense. We have gradually moved away from overhyphenation. I can remember a time when careful writers would probably have written:
*The three-thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.*
In fact, I might still do it that way, but I would re-emphasize that clarity is the only genuine goal.
The Chicago Manual of Style has a lot to say about this whole issue. I have not read it for a few years, but I think it stresses clarity as the issue.
*The three-thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.*
When you deal with problems like this, you have gone beyond rules of grammar and spelling, and you have to use good sense. We have gradually moved away from overhyphenation. I can remember a time when careful writers would probably have written:
*The three-thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.*
In fact, I might still do it that way, but I would re-emphasize that clarity is the only genuine goal.
Rather than starting a new thread, I'm going to resurrect this one, since my questions are related. I'm helping proof something and want to be sure that I'm correct in my understanding of hyphenation for age and time. So...are these examples all correct?
She has a four-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. Yes
She has a four-year old and a two-year old. No
Her children are four years old and two years old. Yes
AND
The prayer was ten minutes long. Yes
It was a ten-minute prayer. (Not "It was a ten-minutes prayer.") Yes
I believe the second one needs two hyphens, because "old" can't stand alone as a noun, rather "four-year-old" in its entirety is the noun. (CMOS)
That doesn't apply to "ten-minute prayer" because "prayer" by itself is a noun and "ten-minute" is a modifier.
First example's correct.
I'd drop the first hyphen in the second example, e.g. three thousand-year-old
-Derek
Hm, so why would you guys leave off the hyphen after "three". That looks... wrong to me. The "three" is part of the compound, isn't it?
The three thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.
The three-thousand-year-old spearheads were hard to find.
How many spearheads? How old are they?
You guys are making my head spin!
The sentence is unambiguous unless someone wants to be argumentative and claim that it could theoretically be interpreted as:
*The three thousand year-old spearheads* (each one is one year old).
/QUOT]
I think it reads clearer as such>
The 3,000 year-old spearheads were hard to find.
.
.