Machine gunfire

[nq:1]An AP story on Yahoo had "Machine gunfire and 10 explosions were heard..." It reads wrong to me.[/nq]
Reads right to me, though I admit that most people wouldn't say it that way.

Adrian

on 01 Nov 2003:
[nq:1]An AP story on Yahoo had "Machine gunfire and 10 explosions were heard..." It reads wrong to me. machine gun ... machinegun fire - (cf. mortar fire) would be ok if machinegun existed. machine gun gunfire - sounds 'correct' but clumsy.[/nq]
I agree. "Machine gunfire" dredges up images from old Disney animations of machines shooting guns or spitting bullets and belching

[nq:2]An AP story on Yahoo had "Machine gunfire and 10 ... machinegun existed. machine gun gunfire - sounds 'correct' but clumsy.[/nq]
[nq:1]I agree. "Machine gunfire" dredges up images from old Disney animations of machines shooting guns or spitting bullets and belching fire. I'd say "machine-gun fire".[/nq]
That's the one I'd write.

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geociti

[nq:2]I agree. "Machine gunfire" dredges up images from old Disney animations of machines shooting guns or spitting bullets and belching fire. I'd say "machine-gun fire".[/nq]
[nq:1]That's the one I'd write.[/nq]
Me, too. It's the only correct and unambiguous way to write it.

Reinhold (Rey) Aman

[nq:1]I'd say "machine-gun fire".[/nq]
So would I, despite "gunfire". Such compounds have to be taken apart when a modifier modifies only the first part. So also (in my book)

a small-business man
a public-school boy

Joe Fineman (Email Removed)

}
}> I'd say "machine-gun fire".
}
} So would I, despite "gunfire". Such compounds have to be taken apart } when a modifier modifies only the first part. So also (in my book) }
} a small-business man
} a public-school boy
How about
an assistant-professor ship

R. J. Valentine

[nq:2]I'd say "machine-gun fire".[/nq]
[nq:1]That's the one I'd write.[/nq]
I'd go with machine gun fire. Isn't "machine gun" a compound noun? As such, it wouldn't get hyphenated, just as one wouldn't hyphenated "high school" in the phrase "high school teacher."

Dena Jo
(Email: Replace TPUBGTH with denajo2)

[nq:2]That's the one I'd write.[/nq]
[nq:1]I'd go with machine gun fire. Isn't "machine gun" a compound noun? As such, it wouldn't get hyphenated, just as one wouldn't hyphenated "high school" in the phrase "high school teacher."[/nq]
We had a high school teacher when I was seven

John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply

[nq:1]I'd go with machine gun fire. Isn't "machine gun" a compound noun? As such, it wouldn't get hyphenated, just as one wouldn't hyphenated "high school" in the phrase "high school teacher."[/nq]
Depends on who's doing the hyphenating: one occasionally sees Newsweek, the New Yorker, and other fine publications hyphenating as a compound modifier.
[nq:1]We had a high school teacher when I

[nq:1]How about an assistant-professor ship[/nq]
That would be a ship for assistant professors. Or "by" assistant professors. If I ever become an assistant professor, I would definitely book passage on such a ship, or help build one if need be.

Wouldn't you?
Maria Conlon