One of the early posts in Jose Carillo’s English Forum when it was launched last year was this very interesting question on how to handle multiword modifiers:

To understand this seemingly peculiar state of affairs, we must first recognize that a hyphenated modifier that precedes a noun is actually an abbreviated or short-hand form of an equivalent but longer modifying phrase that comes after that noun. For instance, the hyphenated modifier “a five-day course” is the shorthand form of the words that comes after the noun “course” in this longer version of the sentence in question: “John attended a course that ran for five days from April 25 to 29, 2009.” (Simply for consistency of style, I have spelled out the numeral “5” to “five” in these discussions.)

Now, the English grammar rule for converting a modifying phrase that comes after a noun into a modifier that precedes the noun is this: use a hyphen to link the word for the quantity or measure with the word specifying the amount or number, but always change the word for the quantity or measure into its singular form. In the particular example that we are discussing, the quantity or measure is “days,” so we need to change it to the singular form “day.” This is why the long phrase “a course that ran for five days” gets transformed into “a five-day course” instead of “a five-days course” when converted into a modifier that will precede the noun it modifies.

Once we get the hang of this conversion process, we can do it routinely without any problem. However, we will find that matters won’t be as simple when the amount or number specified for the quantity or measure in the modifying phrase that comes after the noun can’t be reduced into a single word. For instance, the specification may be “a course that runs for five and a half days” instead of “five,” or, to use an even more complicated specification, “a painting done during the turn of the century.” What do we do in such instances?

The rule in such situations is this: hyphenate all the words in the multiword modifier that will precede the noun to be modified. For instance, the modifying phrase “that runs for five and a half days” becomes the multi­word modifier “five-and-a-half-day” when placed ahead of the noun, resulting in the form “a five-and-a-half-day seminar.” In the same manner, the modifying phrase “done during the turn of the century” becomes the multi­word modifier “turn-of-the-century” when placed ahead of the noun to be modified, resulting in the form “a turn-of-the-century painting.”

We must always keep in mind that in forming hyphenated modifiers to be placed ahead of the noun they will modify, the rule for changing the specification of quantity or measure from its plural to singular form likewise applies to words that inflect or change in spelling when pluralized, like “woman” to “women,” “party” to “parties,” and “millennium” to “millennia.”

Thus, when we transform the modifier “that consists of five women” in the phrase “a team that consists of five women” into a modifier preceding the noun “team,” it becomes the hyphenated modifier “five-woman” in “five-woman team.” Similarly, “a system with three parties” becomes “a three-party system,” and “a glacial period that lasted 100 millennia” becomes “a 100-millennium glacial period.” (May 9, 2009)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, May 9, 2009, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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I’ve always felt that something wasn’t right in the way either of the two news anchors of a major Metro Manila cable TV network would wind up its 10:00 o’clock nightly newscast. One of them would make an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, enunciate something pithily profound like, say, “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment,”* smile a forced smile after a quick swallow of the throat, then make a fast goodbye as if his or her hand had been caught inside a cookie jar.

On one occasion, in fact, I had remarked to my two sons how odd this body language of the news anchors was. When they pressed me for a reason why, I theorized that the anchors probably were reading something on the teleprompter against their will, something very well-worded that wasn’t in their power to think up on their own but have to say anyway because it was in the script. I was almost sure that the anchors were actually reciting quotable quotes from famous historical or literary figures without giving attribution, but because of the pressure of so many other mundane tasks, I never really got to verify my hunch.

But a few nights ago, while one of my sons was watching that nightly newscast, he interrupted my reading to call my attention to what he thought was the confirmation of that hunch. “Dad,” he said, “one of the newscasters has just said, ‘Who does not know another language, does not know his own,’ and he said it as if it was his own idea. It’s actually a direct quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great German writer. We used that quote in the Quotable Quotes section of Jose Carillo’s English Forum last week, and you asked me to make sure the attribution was done right, remember?”

“Hmm . . . Are you sure the newscaster didn’t attribute the statement to Goethe?” I asked.

“No, Dad, he didn’t,” he said. “Like before, the newscaster seemed hesitant so say the quote but he said it anyway without attribution. So you were right after all—those profound ideas they have gotten into the habit of reciting at the end of each newscast were somebody else’s.”

“I thought so.”

“Isn’t there a law against that?”

“Well, in writing, if you don’t attribute a quoted statement to the author, that would be plagiarism. You’ve stolen intellectual property. In college, your professor could flunk you if you’re caught doing it.”

“So why do those newscast writers persist in not giving credit where credit is due? Do they think the broadcast media is above the law?”

“Maybe not. Perhaps they’re doing it simply as a private joke. They probably want to see how far they can take the newscasters, the station management, and us TV viewers for a ride. They must get such a good laugh watching those newscasters squirm while reciting a quotable quote as if it was their own.”

“That’s mean! Shouldn’t those news writers be sanctioned for that?”

“That’s up to the TV station, son. Perhaps they should just be asked to stop the practice outright, be slapped a fine of perhaps a month’s salary, publicly apologize in their own newscast, and undergo intensive training in journalistic ethics.”

“And what about those newscasters who are routinely conned into mouthing other people’s ideas as if those ideas were theirs?”

“Oh, I suspect they know the game all along. I’ll bet they are aware that each of those quoted statements need attribution. But they just aren’t sensitive enough to the primacy of intellectual property rights, and not assertive enough either to resist the lawless humor of their news writers. So what they need, I think, is a special course in assertiveness training.” (September 5, 2009)  

*This is a quote from Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817-1862).

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, September 5, 2009, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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