On Tuesday 2007, June 12, J. Bruce Fields wrote: > On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 04:43:19PM +0100, Andy Parkins wrote: > > - "last-resort" is two words, not a conjoined word, it doesn't > > require the hyphen > > Right, but when you've got a couple words functioning together to > modify a following noun, the hyphen's pretty standard: "rosy-fingered > dawn". Is this case an exception? I suspect it's fine either way.... It's certainly common, I don't think that it's correct though. The hyphen's is to form a new word from multiple other words; but often these days it's just used to join two words that the author wanted saying faster in his head. The test I always use is if the meaning remains the same without the hyphen, it wasn't necessary. Examples: merry-go-round versus merry go round editor-in-chief versus editor in chief Both of the above loose their meaning when they don't have the hyphens. "last-resort" doesn't need to be compound because separated it still means "the resort that is last". I don't say that it is a definitive _wrong_ as the meaning is not lost nor modified; but I've always viewed English like programming - don't add unnecessary complication. > > - "method of" is vulgar, "method for" is nicer > > Reference? Please don't take "vulgar" to mean disgusting, I meant "common". Sorry if that was offensive. Preposition selection and use is highly localised. I will happily accept if you don't agree. Here is the only reference I can find, but it is certainly not definitive, not entirely about this subject... http://mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=2437&m=1259471&t=355765&w=1 However, it does make the case that "of" is possessive, so a "method of ..." means "a method that belongs to ...", so to my ears "a method for" seems the better choice. > What we really need is a complete recovery tutorial to stick in here > someplace. (One day git complains about a corrupt pack file. What > do you do?) What's been stopping me from doing it, besides time, is > no idea how to come up with a good example to work with. A big magnet on your hard disk? ;-) Andy -- Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIET andyparkins@xxxxxxxxx - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
