The Vine: February 26, 2003
Hi, Sars —
Just a quick note to Ex-Rapunzel: She may want to consider donating all
that hair to a charity like Locks of Love. It’s a non-profit organization that makes
hairpieces for underprivileged children who are suffering from medical
hair loss. There are lots of similar charities. A few minutes on the
internet could lead her in the right direction.
Just a thought.
Let Down Your Hair
Dear Sarah,
As a faithful reader of Tomato Nation and The Vine, I
have a question of a grammatical nature for you. As
part of my job I do a bit of editing from time to
time, and more and more I am struck by the unnecessary
use of hyphens. I used to think I knew when one was
appropriate and when one wasn’t, but I am increasingly
unsure of my judgment.
For instance, just today I came across the following
examples:
“the curriculum is well-integrated”
“work as a tightly-knit team”
And this one sentence was full of them: “These
activities provide students with fun-filled and
skill-based lessons that promote higher-ordered
thinking.”
Aside from other egregious grammatical faux pas I
encounter daily, this one has me stumped. Sometimes
MS Word flags the hyphenated word, and sometimes it
doesn’t. What is the rule? Is there a rule? Please
advise.
Thanks,
All Hyphened Out
Dear Hyphened,
I second-guess myself on the hyphenation rule frequently, and I always make a mental note to look it up and get it straight once and for all but I always forget, so thanks for prompting me to actually do it.
But before I get the Garner off the shelf, I’ll make a dollar bet with myself that the first two examples you cite are incorrect, but that the third one is okay. I believe the rule is that adverbial phrases do not need hyphens, because the adverb clearly modifies the adjective, but that compound adjectives like “fun-filled” do. Dollar’s on the desk — let’s go to the videotape.
Garner, in his entry on punctuation: “Here’s the rule: if two or more consecutive words make sense only when understood together as an adjective modifying a noun that follows, those words (excluding the noun) should be hyphenated. Thus you hyphenate special-interest money, but only because money is part of the phrase; if you were referring to this or that special interest, a hyphen would be wrong.”
Elsewhere, Garner addresses phrasal adjectives more particularly: “When a phrase functions as an adjective — an increasingly frequent phenomenon in late-20th-century English [see what he did there?] — the phrase should ordinarily be hyphenated.” He goes on to give examples like “flat-panel computer screens” and “open-air market.” The reasoning behind this is fairly clear; if you don’t hyphenate “open air,” the reader may wonder whether it’s an air market that’s open, blah blah blah.
So, I got the terminology wrong, but did I lose the dollar? Well, according to Garner, the third sentence is in fact correct (“higher-ordered” is a little clanky for my taste, but it’s not wrong). All of the hyphenated phrases in that sentence function as phrasal adjectives; the hyphen is legal and my dollar is still in play. Garner’s next comment keeps it there: “When a phrasal adjective begins with an adverb ending in -ly, the convention is to drop the hyphen.” His example is “hotly contested,” which he would not hyphenate (and I agree).
Two out of three. What about “well-integrated”? Garner: “When they occur in the predicate, phrasal adjectives usually aren’t hyphenated: ‘This rule is well worn‘ — but ‘This is a well-worn rule.” An exception is short-lived, which is always hyphenated.”
“Predicate in the what now?” Yeah, really. Short form: if the phrase in question is occupying the same phrase as the noun, you hyphenate it. If it’s on the opposite side of the verb, you don’t. “We have a well-integrated curriculum” is correct. “The curriculum is well integrated” is also correct. The example you cite is not.
I keep my dollar.
I don’t know if this clarifies anything for you or not — all it really clarified for me, to tell you the truth, is that I do it correctly most of the time but didn’t know why before now. It just looked okay to my reading ear, if that makes sense. But like so many things in written English, the rule is accompanied by an entourage of exceptions (denoting duration, “-style,” blah blah blah), so my advice is to buy a copy of the Garner and double-check yourself if a hyphenation looks off to you.
In fact, my advice to all of you is to buy a copy of the Garner. Not a single grammar question comes up in here that I don’t check against the Garner, and I certainly don’t mind looking these things up — I learn something new each time, as I did today — but I can’t say enough good things about that book.
Dear Sars,
I have a problem. About 18 months ago, I moved to another country. I’m Asian
and I have family there (grandparents and extended familiy), though we’re
not close, mostly the “meet only at Christmas and holidays” type. My mother
arranged for me to have my meals at my relatives’ place, for which I pay a
monthly food fee. I thought the arrangement was going okay — I would go over
there, have my meals with them, sit around and relax with them, et cetera. I don’t
talk a lot with my grandparents due to the language barrier, and my cousins are
mostly young children (under ten years), so my conversations with them have
been sort of limited to gestures and my poor linguistic attempts.
I’ll admit that I could have made a greater effort to be more familiar with
them. I tried buying the kids some treats but got lectured by my
grandparents on how it was bad for their teeth, et cetera; tried to buy some
stuff for them but then got lectured for wasting money; and I pretty
much gave up after the first six months or so.
Then a few nights ago, my grandfather suddenly started laying into me. From
my grasp of the language, I gather that the gist of his lecture was that I
didn’t make enough of an effort to be like family with them, that I behaved
like a stranger who just came over for meals. My grandfather told me that
they would no longer provide meals for me (I don’t really mind that), and
that I shouldn’t come over so often was strongly implied.
He also said that I didn’t really treat them like family, that when I
brought food over (from outside), I didn’t share it with them. The problem
is that I have brought food for them, for which I have sometimes been
rebuked for buying stuff that’s not their perferred brand, too sweet, too
unhealthy, and so on. After a while of that, I gave up on buying food or anything
for them.
He also mentioned that I refused to tutor to my cousin (who is about
eight years old), which I did, but because I have no experience teaching at all,
and no idea about what she’s taught in school or what I’m supposed to do. I
do want her to do well in school, but I didn’t think that I was the right
person to teach her. Also, my auntie and uncle consider her academic success
to be very important, and I guess I just saw a can of worms that I didn’t
want to get involved with. My grandparents took as another example of my
selfishness.
Now on to my problem — I really want to mend fences with them. I just don’t
know how to do this without inadvertently offending them like I’ve been
doing previously. I also don’t want to lose touch with them because they’re
my family. Any ideas would be much appreciated.
Hopelessly Out Of Touch
Dear Out,
I think you should ask to speak to your grandfather — tell him you’d like to apologize, and that you don’t want him to interrupt until you’ve finished. Then apologize, and tell him what you’ve just told me. You feel terrible if you’ve offended him and/or the rest of the family, and you’d like to become closer to them, but you have difficulties with the language, and you don’t know what they consider “proper” all the time — so you hope he’ll give you another chance, and you also hope he’ll help you with some of the cultural differences, because he assumes you know what they expect and how things are done, but you don’t.
The trick is to make him see that you feel bad, but also that, as you say, you offended them inadvertently. I think your grandfather came down a little hard on you given that you barely know either him or the language, but on the other hand, I don’t think he’s inclined to see it that way or to change his way of dealing with you, so appeal to him as an elder and ask him to guide you a bit better in the future.
Dear Sars:
I’m a recent convert to the wonderfulness of Tomato Nation, and have spent the last two weeks assiduously reading your archives, searching for someone with a similar problem to mine. In doing so, I’ve found you to be extremely level-headed and now, with my own problem escalating, have found it necessary to stop searching and just come right out and ask.
I’m 26, and living in a city where living on my own is just not financially feasible. I work for a non-profit agency, and while I love the job, the pay just isn’t that great. So I found a situation I thought would work well; the owner of a townhome community reserved two townhomes that she rented rooms in — all rooms are rented individually, and she handles all of the renting/rent payment issues. I moved into a gorgeous room that I loved, with two people I had never met before. However, due to my previous experience with roommates, and having made two of the most wonderful friends out of it, I was expecting domestic bliss.
How wrong I was. One of the roommates, a woman closer to fifty than she’s willing to admit and with a son my age, was just evil. I nicknamed her “Voldemortess” — never to her face, though I’m not quite certain she can read so she may not have gotten the reference even if I had said so. She was verbally and emotionally abusive to me, causing me to retreat into my room and hide there, for weeks at a time. I suffer from bouts of depression anyway, and needless to say, this living arrangement just wasn’t healthy. But oh, Sars, I loved my room. It was gigantic. It was big enough for me to stay hidden in there and block out her evilness.
Until the day that she called me, at work, to yell at me over really, really stupid things. Apparently she took issue with the fact that when I took the trash to the curb, I missed one of the trash cans. In addition, she thought I was childish for “hiding in my room all the time” and “having my family do everything for me” and that I should just “grow up” and “get a life.” Now, I admit that my family and I are very close and they are my mainstay of support, and we do a lot together. But I thought she was way out of line regardless, and it was none of her business, and I suppose you could say it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Calling me at work and jeopardizing my career was the last straw, and I called my landlady that afternoon and asked to move to one of the other townhomes. I was exceedingly lucky in that a room was available, and the move was accomplished with little fuss. (Well, okay, there was a lot of fuss, mostly from Voldemortess about my continued shortcomings, but since I’m out of there now, I don’t want to even get into it.)
My problem is this – I am now living with another set of roommates that I don’t know, and I am terrified that I am going to do something to piss them off. One of them, I’ll call him “John,” has lived in this townhome for a year, and is buying a house and moving out in two weeks. The other, whom I’ll call “Dave,” is moving in tomorrow. John had the place to himself for quite a while, and as such, has stuff in all of the cabinets, a complete set of furniture in the living room and dining room, and has made no attempt to make room for my things despite that he’s moving out. I’m terrified to ask him to move some things because I don’t want to “rock the boat.” In addition, the landlady had a “discussion” with me because I have two end tables that were in the dining room — for lack of anyplace else to put them yet — and she said that John has “issues” with space flow and likes things to be orderly and neat.
Now, I just moved in a week ago. I haven’t had time to unpack completely, and there is the whole space issue — where am I supposed to put things when John’s things are already everywhere? In addition, John is moving out and I intend to stay — shouldn’t my landlady make accommodations for me, the one who will continue to pay her rent, instead of making accommodations for the one who is leaving in two weeks? I fear that Voldemortess told the landlady horrible things about me, and that I am, in effect, “on probation” when I haven’t done anything wrong. I never went to the landlady with the problems I had with Voldemortess, because I didn’t think it was necessary to bother her with them — we were both adults (so I thought) and would solve them or not, on our own. There seemed no need to tattle.
I guess my question is this: What can I do to ensure that I don’t make waves with Dave, who is moving in on Saturday? I’m terrified that I’ll end up in another horrible situation and I have nowhere else to go. I can’t even begin to think of what kinds of arrangements we need to set up right up front, and what can be handled as things come along…all I can think about is the emotional hell I was living in before, and my fear of that happening again is paralyzing.
Please help me. I don’t know what to do.
The Girl Who Lived — With An Evil Bitch
Dear Girl,
Voldemortress may have had a point, about one thing — I think you do need to grow up a little bit and learn to communicate clearly with your roommates.
I don’t know how far back into the archives you read, but I’ve answered many roommate-issues letters, and nine times out of ten, the author hasn’t talked to her roommate(s) about the problem — late rent checks, dirty dishes, PDA in the living room, whatever — and I end up reminding the author that living peacefully with a person you don’t love That Way is not about making friends. It’s about living peacefully together. That means compromising and discussing issues maturely instead of obsessing about what your former roommate may have told your landlord.
John is moving out. You don’t have to bond with the guy. You just have to ask him nicely to move some of his shit so that you can deal with your end tables. It’s exactly that simple. Suck it up, walk over to him, and ask if he’d mind clearing a few things out so that you can make some progress on the unpacking front before Dave arrives. If he refuses, then your end tables stay in the dining room until he leaves — fuck his issues with space flow in the ear. If the landlady mentions it again, tell her to take it up with John. Not your problem.
When Dave does move in, sit down with him for an hour or two and go over every possible point of conflict you might run into — quiet hours, overnight guests, food-sharing, who’s responsible for what chores, which furniture is going where. Don’t pretend this or that is “fine, no problem” if you think it might bug you later. It’s not about becoming BFF with Dave. It’s about not braining him with a lamp when he has friends over for the fourth night in a row. Compromise where you can, but if you don’t want him touching your dishes, say so on the first day, and promise yourself that if you have issues with him as a roommate in the future, you will bring them up politely and promptly as soon as they arise.
Enough with the hiding in your room. Leave your landlady out of it. Ask John to move his things like an adult. Discuss the house rules with Dave like an adult. If it’s not working out after a few months, check the real estate listings like an adult. You can handle this. Handle it.
Sars,
I have a doozy of a problem, and I hope you can help. I recently discovered that one of my nephews is not his father’s son.
Let me back up a bit. I’m a scientist, in training to be a forensic DNA analyst. One of the things that I will do as a DNA analyst is perform parentage determination. As a trainee, I can’t do testing on any real evidence, so I need to find willing volunteers.
Enter my husband’s family — two parents, seven kids, eleven grandkids. All willingly donated some saliva towards my training research. All the work was done and I was preparing a report for my supervisor when I noticed what I thought was an error in my analysis. So, I redid it. Then I had someone else do it, not telling them the origin of the samples. They came to the same conclusion as I did.
My husband’s sister D and her husband E have two sons, L and R. D and E are genetic parents to L. D is R’s mother, but E cannot be his father. I haven’t told anyone, yet, and hence my dilemma. Do I tell or not, and if I do, who do I tell? Approach D quietly, scream it out at the next family function?
Right now I am leaning towards not telling — this is a personal matter, and may be something that D and E are aware of (sperm donor, confessed affair) and are keeping quiet for reasons of their own. On the other hand, if they knew of R’s paternity, why would they give permission for me to test their son? I made no secret of what I was going to do with the samples, that they were for a study of parentage and gene heredity through three generations, but I also told them that the samples were for my own use, and that none of the research would be published or otherwise made public. They could have refused to participate (one family member did), and I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.
And then there is the child, in his early teens. I can’t help thinking that he has a right to know, especially in terms of medical history and such. But perhaps he does. As I see it, there is no right or wrong, just what is best. And that is what I am having a hard time figuring out.
Twisted up over DNA
Dear DNA,
My first thought is that D and E assumed you already knew R’s provenance. Unless they really don’t understand what DNA testing means and does — which I would find hard to believe in this post-O.J. day and age — I think they had to have known the results you’d get, and to have not much cared. Either that or it’s a big old dark secret, and they do care, and it’s a passive wanting-to-get-caught move of some kind so that the truth will come out and the messenger — you — will conveniently get shot, but that explanation is a little Melrose for my taste.
Before you decide whom to tell what, swear your husband to secrecy and see if he can shed any light on the subject. He might shrug, “Yeah, D had an affair years ago but E decided to adopt R.” He might go, “Whaaaaaaaat?” Still, it’s his sister, so I’d shake that tree first and see what drops. If it’s news to him that R isn’t E’s biological child, you should discuss what’s appropriate and ethical for you to do next; you can’t leave him out of the decision.
I have a feeling that it’s one of those family “secrets” that everyone knows but politely pretends that they don’t, but ask your husband and find out.
Tags: grammar roommates the fam
In regards to DNA, it could be that only the mother, D, knows and she couldn’t very well refuse on her child’s behalf without accidentally confessing.
If it were me, I wouldn’t tell a soul, not even mention it to D that I knew.
The curiosity would eat me up, but I figure it’s her secret to tell or not.
You’d probably gain a real friend and confidant in the process and it’s by far the classiest way to handle it. If it’s a family secret, don’t rock the boat. Here there be monsters.