Learn English Punctuation: How to use hyphens with compound adjectives

Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson is grammar. And actually,

I had quite a few requests for this lesson, because these seem to give people a lot of

trouble, especially in writing. Okay? "Compound Adjectives".

Firstly, what is a compound adjective? Mostly, you'll notice a compound adjective has the

hyphen in it. Right? It's a two- or three-part... Two- or three-word adjective that, together,

acts as one word. Okay? That's very important to remember. It may have one word, it may

have two words, it may have three words connected by a hyphen, but they work all together like

one word, one adjective word. Okay. Let's look at a few examples before we get into

the details of how to construct these.

"I heard a girl speaking English."

"I have an English-speaking friend."

Now, what's the difference between these two? "I heard a girl who was speaking English."

or: "I heard a girl with an", gerund. So, this could be a participle, this could be

a gerund; it doesn't matter. It comes after "the girl", and this is what she is doing.

Okay?

"I have an English-speaking friend." Now, I can change this sentence and say: "I have

a friend who speaks English." But it's much easier just to say an adjective about the friend.

Now, it's very important to remember an adject-... Sorry, a compound adjective comes before a noun.

It always becomes before a noun; never after it. If it comes after it, it's no longer

a compound adjective. There's no more need for the hyphen. Okay? Let's look at more examples.

"A strong, healing lotion". Or: "A fast-healing cut". Now, even though it's a fast-healing

cut, I would still want to use a strong, healing lotion. What's the difference, here? Here,

first of all, you notice the comma. I have two adjectives. It's a strong lotion, it's

a healing lotion. These are two separate ideas about this noun. Okay? They're not joined

together. Each one affects the lotion. Here, "fast-healing lotion", it's fast and it's

healing... "A fast-healing cut", sorry. It's fast and it's healing about this cut.

So, for example, you go to a doctor and he needs to remove a mole. You have like a little

thing growing on your arm. So he cuts it, but he's a specialist, he's very professional.

It's a very fast-healing cut. In two days, you won't even know there was a cut there.

Right? So, both these words-this is an adverb-okay?-this is a participle-both work as one word about

"cut". Now, you don't really need to worry about this, but just in case you're interested,

if you're writing and you have a word count... For example, IELTS or TOEFL, you have to write

250 words or 350 words, respectively. This is one word; not two words. Remember that.

Okay?

Next: "A man eating lion". Now, I don't know if people actually eat lions. I don't know

how they would taste. I'm sure they're kind of gamey. It means a little bit strong taste.

But I saw a man eating lion. So this man was eating that lion.

But, then I saw: "A man-eating lion" eat the man. How does that work? "A man-eating lion",

so this is a compound clause describing "lion". A lion who eats people. Okay? Very different meaning.

So, now you're saying: "Okay, well, where do I put the adjective? Where do I put the

compound adjective? Like, before, after, not at all, with a hyphen, without the hyphen?"

So this is what we're going to look at next. But, before we do that, this is where people

make the most mistakes in writing, especially English learners. Okay? "My nephew is 10 years

old." Okay? With the "s", no hyphen; after the noun, after the "be" verb. But: "I have

a 10-year-old nephew." No "s", and two hyphens, and they become before the noun "nephew".

Now, it doesn't matter if you print the number "10" or if you write the word "ten". If you're

using it as a compound adjective before the noun, then you have the hyphens, you don't

have the "s". But let's look at more specific details to know how to use and what sort of

words we can combine to make a compound adjective.

Okay, so let's see how we construct compound adjectives. There's a few ways to construct

them. We're going to look at two. We're going to look at a few more after that. First of

all, you can begin by using an actual adjective or an adverb plus a participle. Again, two

types of participles; "ing" like: "talking" or "looking", or there's the past participle,

which is "ed" or irregular verb, however that ends. Right? Oh, sorry. My mistake here. There

you go. "Known" or "eyed". We'll talk about that "eyed" in a second.

So, what you do, you join the adjective or the adverb, plus the hyphen, plus the participle.

So: "Fast-talking", like a fast-talking salesman. He knows exactly what to say. He talks fast;

you can't keep up. You don't understand what he's saying. Next thing you know, you're signing

for a brand new car. You don't even know what you paid. He's a fast-talking salesman.

"Good-looking". A good-looking girl, a good-looking boy, etc.

"Blue-eyed". Somebody who has blue eyes, you could say: "A blue-eyed man", or: "A blue-eyed

woman", "A blue-eyed child".

"Well-known". A well-known professor. Now, again, very, very important to remember, all

of these would come before the noun.

So: "She is a good-looking girl.", "She is good looking." They mean the same. The two

sentences mean exactly the same way, but... Mean exactly the same thing, but different

structure. Okay. Sorry, I just realized another one. "Participle". Okay. Participle. So, this

is the participle, this is the participle, but: after the verb, no hyphen; before the

verb, hyphen. Both of these about the noun.

Now, I talked about blue-eyed. Now you're thinking: "'Eye' is not a verb." I mean, it

is a verb, you can eye something. Means you can see it and want it. But in this case,

it just means to have something.

So, body parts, for some reason, we can turn into participles. "Hair", "a dark-haired woman",

"a brown-eyed boy", "a long-nosed man", "a thick-lipped woman", "a wide-bodied truck".

It doesn't have to be about a person, actually. We can use body for many things, but you could

say... You know, so say: "Bone", like... Sometimes people say like for heavy people, we say:

"Big-boned". Not very nice thing to say, but people say it. Just so you know... And there's

other verbs, but I'm not going to talk about those today; they don't have anything to do

with this lesson. So, body parts, you can turn into participles, add an adjective, and

you have a compound adjective.

Now, you can also use a noun plus a participle to create a compound adjective. Okay?

"Sun-dried tomatoes", these are very delicious. You put them on your pasta, whatever you do.

"A blood-sucking leech", now, I'm not sure if you know what a leech is. A leech is a

very, very tiny, little worm that it comes onto your body, like usually in a tropical

place, humid, lots of water, standing water. It'll crawl up, you won't even know it's there.

It'll start sucking your blood, and it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Sometimes

they can get this big, full of your blood. And they're very hard to get off; they like

to stick. But they are blood-sucking leeches. Okay? So, this, we have "blood", we have the

participle "sucking" about the "leech". This is what they do.

Now, let's say Beyoncé, I don't know, whoever you like, releases a new album and she has

record-breaking sales. Huge sales. The records, the most sales by an artist, broke them. But

again, this, an adjective for that. Okay, we have adjectives, adverbs, and participles.

We have nouns and participles. Let's look at a few more.

Okay, last few examples to look at. Very important to remember, when you're using numbers, numbers

plus nouns to describe another noun, although there's no adjective involved here, although

technically numbers are adjectives, but the whole thing becomes an adjective to that noun.

Okay? So, "a 10-storey building". So: "Across the street they're building a 10-storey building."

Okay? They're putting up a 10-storey building. So notice we have "10". Even if you write

the word "ten", it doesn't matter. It's still a number plus a noun that, together, are used

as an adjective for the building, for the other noun. So make sure you have the dash.

But if you talk about the building and you talk about how many stories it has and you

put it after the building, then that building has "10 stories" with the "s", okay?

"That building has 10 stories." Just remember add the "s" after the noun; with a hyphen, no "s".

Your teacher in university, and this is very common, so when you get to university, be

prepared to write "10-page essays". Not "10 pages essays", "10-page essays". You can put

a "one-page"... Sorry, "A one 10-page essay", or: "10 page essays". Again, if you put it

after, the essay needs to be 10 pages.

We already spoke about this. "10-year-old boy". "A boy who is 10 years old". Now, you'll

also notice I said you will have to write... Let's say I'm the professor. You're joining

my course. Over the whole year, you will have to write five 10-page essays. So don't worry

about this number. This is a different 5 essays, 10 pages each. So: "Five 10-page essays".

Okay? And again, when you're speaking, you'll have to make that pause on the comma. In writing,

it's obvious, it's clear.

Last one, when you have number plus measure... time or any other measure. So, I have to work

an "8-hour shift" today. An "8-hour" is an adjective for the type of shift. "8-hour".

Any other measure, like you're talking about feet, you're talking about pounds, you're

talking about ounces, you're talking about litres. It doesn't matter what the unit of

measure is, if you're putting a number before it, and the number plus the measure describe

the noun, make sure you have your hyphen. And again, not: "five-feet wall", "five-foot

wall". That wall is five feet high. It is a five-foot-high wall. And if you want to

put the "high", you don't need to, but if you want to, then you got a three-word compound

adjective; you have two hyphens. Okay? Same story applies for plural before or after.

This is an irregular plural; "one-foot", "two feet", doesn't matter. Same rule applies.

After the noun, "feet"; before the noun, "foot".

Now, if you have any questions about compound adjectives, please feel free to ask me on

www.engvid.com in the comment section under the quiz. Of course, take the quiz and practice

all of this. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouToo channel... YouTube channel. Sorry.

See you again soon. Bye.