A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases

A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases A Yes-and-No Answer About Hyphenating Phrases By Mark Nichol When it comes to following grammatical rules by example, the field is a minefield, because many publishers and publications can’t even seem to get it right, and writers must resort to hunting down the correct usage in a style guide or a writing handbook. Take, for instance, phrases of several words in which hyphenation seems to be called for. Is it â€Å"word of mouth,† or â€Å"word-of-mouth†? Do you write â€Å"on the spot,† or â€Å"on-the-spot†? The quick-and-easy answer is, for these and most other apparent word chains, break those chains: No hyphens are necessary unless the phrase precedes a noun: â€Å"I rely on word-of-mouth communication†; â€Å"She made an on-the-spot assessment.† But the game changes for a special class of phrase that, for lack of standard nomenclature, we can call anatomical association: When your dorsal side is opposite someone else’s, you’re standing back-to-back, and when you confront someone, you go head-to-head. This type of phrase is sometimes hyphenated in adverbial form (used in conjunction with a verb) as well as in adjectival form (preceding or following a noun): â€Å"He produced back-to-back hits throughout the decade.† â€Å"She hoped to a avoid a head-to-head confrontation.† Unfortunately, though, even that classification is inconsistent: When you line up among a row of people to your left and right, you’re positioned side by side, not side-by-side. (Though you still hyphenate the adjectival form you stand in a side-by-side formation.) You can live a hand-to-mouth existence, but you’re living hand to mouth, not hand-to-mouth. Some similar phrases, such as â€Å"head to toe† or â€Å"hand in hand,† aren’t even in the dictionary, so the same rule applies; leave open in adverbial form, and hyphenate as an adjective. (Phrasal adjectives usually remain open after a noun, but these aren’t conducive to that syntax anyway.) This maddening inconsistency leaves us where we started: When in doubt, look it up. And what about even longer word strings? You can write that someone has a devil-may-care attitude, and that someone has a not-in-my-backyard mentality, but where do you draw the line and stop drawing that little line we call a hyphen? What if someone has a do-unto-others-before-someone-does-unto-you approach to life? Many such phrases are enclosed in quotation marks rather than hyphenated, which is reasonable for something that would conceivably be uttered and doesn’t play havoc with narrow columns of type (as it may very well have done here). But phrases of manageable length like â€Å"not in my backyard,† even though they’re hypothetical statements, should remain in phrasal-adjective mode. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How to Format a US Business LetterHow to Punctuate Descriptions of ColorsDouble Possessive

A Guide to Conjugating Battre (to Beat)

A Guide to Conjugating Battre (to Beat) The French word battre means to beat. (The reflexive se battre means to fight, as does the verb combattre.) It is an irregular -re verb, meaning youll have to memorize the conjugations, rather than rely knowing on the regular -re conjugation pattern. How to Conjugate the French Verb Battre You can start as you would when conjugating a regular -re verb and determine the stem by dropping the -re (batt-). Heres where things deviate from a regular verb: In the present tense, the singular forms also drop the second t. These charts show you how to conjugate this irregular verb. (Other verbs that include battre, like  abattre, combattre  and dà ©battre, also follow this irregular pattern.) Present Future Imperfect Present Participle je bats battrai battais battant tu bats battras battais il bat battra battait nous battons battrons battions vous battez battrez battiez ils battent battront battaient Subjunctive Conditional Pass simple Imperfect subjunctive je batte battrais battis battisse tu battes battrais battis battisses il batte battrait battit battt nous battions battrions battmes battissons vous battiez battriez batttes battissiez ils battent battraient battirent battissent   Ã‚  Imperative(tu)bats(nous)battons(vous)battez How to Use  Battre  in the Past Tense Though this is a lesson about simple conjugation, its important to touch on the compound tense passà © composà ©, as it is the most common way to put something in the past tense in French. For battre, the auxiliary verb is avoir and the past participle is battu. For example: Il a battu les oeufs avec une fourchette.He beat the eggs with a fork.

Assess and Evaluate Winston Churchill as a Foreign Policy Leader Term Paper

Assess and Evaluate Winston Churchill as a Foreign Policy Leader - Term Paper Example Premier Churchill and President Roosevelt are said to have attended almost a dozen conferences together which goes on the show the amount of understanding and collaboration between the two countries. It was only due to Churchill’s sincere work that he got the support of the Americans in 1941. Even relationships with the Soviet Union weren’t strong before Churchill took charge of his office. Churchill, however, looked at the need of the hour paying importance to the delicacy of the situation, as the Nazis had almost conquered France, and formed an unexpected and uncomfortable alliance with the Soviets. The height of Churchill’s foreign policy perspective can be attributed to the fact that he brought the Soviets and the Americans together and formed the so-called â€Å"Grand Alliance†. If these two countries were left on their own there was no chance they would have even thought of working together. It was Churchill who traveled almost forty thousand miles across the world in the wartime to muster the support of these two countries (Merritt, 2007). Churchill is often criticized over the Dresden bombing controversy. His critics believed that this act led to a dramatic fall in his image as a good foreign policy decision maker (Titus, 1963). In 1945, the British and American bombers launched an attack on the German city of Dresden which resulted in deaths of a significant number of civilians. Many believed that his instructions to the RAF constituted a war crime and were an insult to precious human life. Churchill is also accredited for building the foundations of understanding between the United States and the United Kingdom (Daynes, 2006). It was due to Churchill’s efforts that these two countries are strong allies even in the current times and always come to help each other whenever required. Churchill is also attributed as being a major contributing party to the treaties that ultimately redrew post-war boundaries in Europe and Asia. He attended the Yalta Conference which was called for the purpose post-war reorganization.