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We are going to have a get-together tonight to celebrate our acquaintance for 10 years. Thank you !!

Deborah_d · Accepted Answer

The 'get-together' part is right, but the 'for 10 years' is ambiguous - it could mean that you are going to celebrate for 10 years! So I'd say 'to celebrate our 10-year acquaintance.'

Matthewwoo · Answer

Thanks for your reply! I still have a question about you said 10-year. why should we put - in 10-year? Also, is it also correct for using years?

Thanks!!

Deborah_d · Answer

Well if you just put 'for 10 years' at the end of the sentence, it's not clear whether it's 'acquaintance of 10 years' or 'celebrating for 10 years'. So to make it clear you have to move the '10 years', so to show it applies to the acquaintance, you make it an adjective. It's 2 words acting as 1 adjective, so you join it into 1 word with the hyphen ('-').

For example, say you talked about a 'long distance call'. That could be a 'distance call' that is long (talking for a long time) or a call that is over a long distance. So you have to join the words to make it clear which words go together - as it's a call over a long distance, 'long distance' is acting as 1 adjective, so you join it. 'A long-distance call.'

'10-year acquaintance' is a good phrase. You can talk about a '2-year marriage', a 'four-hour wait', etc, just as you would talk about a 'five-year-old boy'.

Robsterhews · Answer

We are going to have a get-together to celebrate our friendship of 10 years.

It might be normal British English to say "acquaintance of 10 years" - but in the USA that would be considered quite an unusual sentence.

Rob Hewson

Deborah_d · Answer

As I said above, 'acquaintance of 10 years' is not correct - '10-year acquaintance' is better.

However, you could use that sentence if the 'acquaintance' is a person. So if everyone's known Jeff for 10 years, and held a party for him, you could say 'We're having a party for our acquaintance of 10 years, Jeff.'

As for acquaintance vs friendship, it would entirely depend on the relationship. If they are friends, of course you can say 'friendship'. 'Acquaintance' is more formal, and may be used in a business context.

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