Compound Noun, Compound Adjective

Hyphenated compound nouns are fairly uncommon, but here’s an example, with a compound adjective after it. It’s a recent (February 10, 2023) Washington Post headline.

Biden ordered [a/the] shoot-down of a ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska airspace

Headlines tend to be terse, so I added the articles in the brackets to make it easier to see that they combined a verb and a preposition to make a “shoot-down” into a noun. In English, compound nouns tend to migrate from being hyphenated (such as “pick-up”) to being a single word (pickup) as they become more common. We don’t say “a shoot-down” very often.

You can easily tell that “high-altitude” is an adjective because it refers to “object.”

Sorry, no picture of the object yet. [later] Okay, here’s a photo. The balloon is the white circular object.

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Here’s a good example that shows the difference between hyphenated and unhyphenated adjectives. Here’s the a headline:

Axios AM: Fake burger crash

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-02b0d9c0-ca6c-4ae0-b862-a72a69f97955.html

So what’s fake? The burger (fake burger) or the crash? (fake crash)

Turns out when you look at the article that has this headline, it’s fake burgers that crash for real.

You need the hyphen to tie “fake” and “burger” together! It’s “fake-burger crash.”

Here’s the picture that goes with the article:

Most compound adjectives are two words connected by a hyphen. But occasionally, more than two words are necessary. Here’s the passage:

So should we use four hyphens? You could.

“Seek out” is a separable verb—no hyphen!

“Half-dollar store” is okay. “Half” is an adjective and “dollar” is a noun.

Separable verbs don’t need hyphens.

She got the verb wrong. Should be “seek out.”

The compound adjective is good, though: “half-dollar.”

End of lesson.