The Life-weary Hyphen

[George Allaman <gallama -at- LOOKOUT -dot- ECTE -dot- USWC -dot- USWEST -dot- COM>]

On Wed, 15 Nov 1995, Barclay Blanchard wrote:

> For example...

> The light blue car sped down the highway.
> "Light" might refer to the car's weight.

> The light-blue car sped down the highway.
> "Light" clearly refers to the shade of blue.

Ah, the glories of anal retention. Barclay (by the way, I love your
name!), I respectfully differ. In the first instance, shouldn't it be:

The light, blue car... (meaning weight)

and in the second:

The light blue car... (meaning a light shade of blue)

The hyphen in this case would only be used to connect two words which
form a single modifier, for instance:

The powder-blue car...

-or-

The anal-retentive tech writer...

;-)

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