Compound Adjectives

You see compound adjectives done correctly a lot, so you probably get them correct yourself. You could say it’s a deep-seated habit. Here’s a guy who got it wrong:

Well, his mistake is justified. The rule is that two adjectives (or nouns used attributively) that modify a word together should be hyphenated. So we have the five-second rule about dropped food.

An adverb-adjective pair, though, usually isn’t hyphenated because the adverb modifies just the adjective. For example, we can have a very dark night, or a thoroughly spoiled custard. And “after holiday” is an adverb-adjective pair.

But sometimes that adverb-adjective pair just makes more sense as a compound adjective. “After” is an adverb, but he’s not saying that he’s doing something after the holiday; he’s saying that the bills are the after-holiday type. So here we have the uncommon case of an adverb-adjective compound.

It’s a judgement call, so think when you write.

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Okay, forget about the comic itself (I don’t get it, and besides, this is a grammar blog, not a comic blog).

First mistake; third panel: If you’re talking about distance, use “farther,” not “further.” “Further” is for abstract things that can’t be described by distance.

Second mistake; last panel: He’s talking about the manner in which something is being done, so he needs an adverb, not an adjective. He should say “quickly.”

Third item, not a mistake, but most people get it wrong: His “I” is correct. “I” is the subject of the implied sentence “I can look it up.” People get this wrong so often that you would be ahead to supply the missing verb: “…as quickly as I can.”

The mistake is in the first panel. I bet you won’t see it. I’m not referring to the false subject (there’s) either:

Here’s the goof: technically, “slower” is an adjective, and she’s using it as an adverb, to modify “drive.” You can have a slow driver, but you drive slowly, or in this case, more slowly.

Ah, idiomatic spoken English is so full of solecisms…

Okay, so where does the apostrophe go?

Not before the “s,” not after the “s.” You remove it! This is another of those uncommon cases in English where you put the adjective after the noun, such as “court martial” and “attorney general.”

Can you think of any others?

What??? You ask. Hear me out.

First, numbers in most contexts are adjectives. Adjectives don’t show number in English. We say “five apples” but not “fives apples.” But that’s not my point.

Let’s move on to arithmetic. We (correctly) say “Three and six are nine.” Plural verb, so plural numbers, right? Not quite. That sentence has a plural subject, three and six. You could as easily say “Tom and Pete are sick.” The two persons are one each, and they make a plural subject.

A number is singular when you talk about the number itself!

For example, you say, “six is half of twelve, thirteen is a prime number.” Singular verbs! You’re referring to the number itself (not themselves), not six of something, such as six people.

Finally we get to the comic. Third panel. The guy confuses referring to the number itself with the number of things. Sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

Anyway, there’s a little incongruity for you that I bet you never noticed.