Jim,
John Steele gave a good answer.
English tends towards simplification of writing style over time. There
was a time that "cooperative" required (!) an "unlaut" over the second
"o" to show that a diphthong ("oo") was not intended. I recall when one
saw "catalogue" more often than "catalog". I still use a comma before
"and" and "or" in a series of equal parts ("Bob, Bill, and Bubba").
My impression is that the "double adjective hyphen" is slowly going
away. The SI Brochure and NIST SP 811 demand that for metric values in
symbolic form ("10 mm bolt"), even when used as adjectives. The world is
still split on spelled out forms ("ten millimeter bolt" or
"ten-millimeter bolt").
Jim
Jim Elwell wrote:
My grammar checker keeps trying to get me to hyphenate a metric unit of
measure when used as an adjective (apparently seeing the number and the
unit as a compound adjective). I wrote:
"put all those resources into a 180 mm industrial panel-mount unit"
And it suggests
"put all those resources into a 180-mm industrial panel-mount unit"
I thought I was quite familiar with metric style, but I am not sure
about this one. Can anyone shed some light on it?
Thanks!
Jim
--
**********************
Jim Elwell
[email protected]
801-466-8770
www.qsicorp.com
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James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
