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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

adjective

Hi,
I was looking online for some help on adjectives and came upon a help (tip) source called "Grammatically Correct." In it, in the section called "Using Hyphens in Compound Adjectives (and Exceptions to the Rule) by John Davis, he seemed to have said something to the effect that when you use two or more words used before a noun and after a noun, the hyphenation rule differs and when you use before a noun, use a hyphen but after a noun, no hyphen.

It gave these three examples:

Examples (before a noun):
Brown-eyed girl
Fur-lined coat
Tone-deaf violinist

Examples (after a noun):
The girl was brown eyed.
The coat was fur lined.
The violinist was tone deaf.

This explanation surprised me because my limited knowledge on this was that only in a limited cases like "a well-known person," do the "use-a-hyphen before and no-hyphen-after" rule apply. Does the rule stated above meant to apply in all cases??
  

Top answer

In most cases, yes--predicative modification is not hyphenated. Note that the non-hyphenated forms come after the verb as well, not just after the noun.

  • In most cases, yes--predicative modification is not hyphenated.
  • Note that the non-hyphenated forms come after the verb as well, not just after the noun.
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4 Answers
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In most cases, yes--predicative modification is not hyphenated. Note that the non-hyphenated forms come after the verb as well, not just after the noun.
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I was looking online for help on "predicate adjectives" and came upon the keepandshare.com website. Under the heading of "Predicate Adjectives," it had these two examples among many, on its page which accompanied excellent explanations. I think 'winded' and 'spread'
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Hi, I would like to have some good responses please, if possible.
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You've chosen words/phrases that are hypenated all the time.
The "use the hypen before the noun but not after" rules works only if the two words wouldn't have a hyphen normally.
She is a full-time student. She is going to school full time.

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