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Londonderry Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Physical Measurements

Hello,

I have a question about the way height and weight should be written.

Max Davis is 6 feet 5 inches tall.
He is a 6-foot 5-inch athlete.

Francene's baby weighed 12 pounds 5 ounces at birth.
Francene's gave birth to a 12-pound 5-ounce baby girl.

I'm thinking that the hyphenated modifiers are okay as written (i.e., with just two hyphens). I also think that there should be no commas in any of my examples. Do you agree? I thank you very, very much!
  

Top answer

There seems to be many discussions on this with no "definitive" answer. CMS is apparently silent on the issue. There seems to be three schools of thought: Your way Something like "a six-foot-five athlete" (no one would say "inches" there - it's understood) or a 12-pound-5-ounce baby (which is freaking enormous!

— BarbaraPA

  • There seems to be many discussions on this with no "definitive" answer.
  • CMS is apparently silent on the issue.
  • There seems to be three schools of thought: Your way Something like "a six-foot-five athlete" (no one would say "inches" there - it's understood) or a 12-pound-5-ounce baby (which is freaking enormous!
  • " I don't really like any of them - using it all as a modifier is pretty clumsy.
  • " (By the way, you forgot to delete the 's after Francene in your fourth sentence).
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2 Answers
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There seems to be many discussions on this with no "definitive" answer. CMS is apparently silent on the issue.

There seems to be three schools of thought:
  • Your way
  • Something like "a six-foot-five athlete" (no one would say "inches" there - it's understood) or a 12-pound-5-ounce baby (which is freaking enormous! - I assume Francene had a c-section)
  • Using the comma,
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Oops! I did. (Typo.)

Thank you very much for your response-- appreciated!
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