Pain only a supernerd can feel.

[hannahchan]

People! People! For the love of all that's decent, stop it with the hyphens between adverb-adjective pairs! If an adverb is modifying an adjective, it does not need a hyphen. No, it doesn't.

No, really.

No!

Did you hear me? NO!!!!!!!

Okay, well, yes, there's that whole issue with "well" and a few other weirdo adverbs, but in general, no hyphen. It's a

Comments

[grlwithcamera]

ok, ok! gheesh! don't get your parenthesis in a bunch!

[hannahchan]

Har! Just to be clear: Not about the LJ, because this is the land of casual writing. But if you're getting paid to produce words, is it too much to ask that you know the basic rules of putting those rules together? But then again, if they all knew how to do that, then I'd be out of a job, so I guess I should be grateful for every blessed grammatical mistake...

[greyplanet]

let's use another example-

wrong: "joe grey certainly is well-endowed."

right: "joe grey certainly is well endowed."

please keep this in mind when writing shit about me on the ladies' room wall.

[hellojessi]

well, it is certainly written correctly, but does that make it right? ;)

[hannahchan]

Actually "well-endowed" does take a hyphen. That's why I used it when I wrote that about you.

[hellojessi]

and now i become very concerned about the grammatical integrity of things i have written to you in the past...
i'm-really-good-with-numbers. that has to count for something, right?

[hannahchan]

Oh, hon, don't worry, this isn't about you. What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own blogospheres is fine with me. I'm just venting about my "pro" writers, none of whom seem to have heard of Strunk & White or, indeed, any grammar reference book. But that's what they pay me the big bucks for, no?

[hellojessi]

i totally wasn't offended. i figured you were venting about work related situations. you should see how worked up i can get about the stupidity of the layout of some vendor's invoices. we all geek out about our jobs :)

[hannahchan]

Ha! And I bet any invoice I created would look like ass! To each their skill set.

[jazzometer]

people also forget (or just don't know) about adjective-noun compounds:

a twelfth-century chronicle

That is all.

~j.z.

[hannahchan]

So true. It's like they take all the hyphens that belong in their adjective-noun compounds, and give them to the undeserving adverb-adjective ones. Like tax cuts for the rich, I tell you.