She’s Correct, Though

Actually, sometimes you have to compromise because the space on a traffic sign is so limited.

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“Forever” is an adverb. Objects of prepositions need to be nouns, pronouns, or noun clauses, not adverbs.

So the humor is misdirection. You expect the gal in the third panel to correct the mistaken object of the preposition “in,” instead of express an opinion about baseball.

Well, rule of thumb, that is. A recommendation, really. Third panel. He stated the rule a bit more strongly than I do.

My rule is that your writing is generally better if you can think of a good verb and dispense with the adverb. Unless your emphasis is on the adverb, maybe.

I don’t recall mentioning this grade-school point of grammar before. The difference between “well” and “good.”

• Well—an adverb. Goes with verbs. Well done!
• Good—an adjective. Goes with nouns. Good lesson!
• Yes, both words can be nouns, but that’s a lesson for another day.

Okay, class, here’s a test. Did he get it correct or not? Last panel.

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.