To call attention to the perils of not hyphenating compound modifiers, I am sharing with Forum members the response of
Philippine Star business columnist Boo Chanco to my feedback regarding what I felt was cringeworthy grammar usage in his Demand and Supply column last June 21, 2013,
“Can P-Noy do a Spoelstra?” Here’s the exchange as printed verbatim in Boo’s column:
My favorite grammar Nazi was so disappointed with my last column I just have to share his e-mail. Don’t get me wrong… I use “Nazi” here lovingly. I totally respect Jose Carillo and appreciate his calling my attention now and then. Here is his e-mail:
“Knowing you to know your English grammar and usage very well, I suspect that this repeated cringeworthy English in your ‘Demand and Supply’ column in the Philippine Star today, June 19, 2013, could only be the handiwork of an uninformed proofreader (italicizations mine):
“Under promise, over deliver
“‘It is really frustrating to see the P-Noy administration falling for the same mistakes of the Arroyo administration: it over promises and under delivers...’
“The usage of the words ‘over promises’ and ‘under delivers’ here is highly ambiguous and confusing; in fact, the sense of both word-pairs border on the nonsensical. For the meaning intended by that headline and lead sentence, those words should have been compounded into the single-word verbs ‘overpromises’ and ‘underdelivers’ or, at the very least, into the hyphenated compound verbs ‘over-promises’ and ‘under-delivers.’
“Combining those two word-pairs either way would have made them express the single concept you intended for each of them—‘underdeliver,’ to fail to meet a target in the provision of goods or services, and ‘overpromise,’ to create excessive expectations that could not be met.”
What can I say? Mea culpa! Actually, I was unsure or didn’t realize how grievous the mistake was. I was waylaid by MS Word’s grammar/spell check which underlined “underdeliver” and “underpromise” with a screaming red line. It was only appeased after I clicked its suggestion: two words. Indeed, your use of cringeworthy as one word is also honored by that red line.
So sorry Herr Kapitan… will try to do better next time. But you must have a word with the guys at Microsoft for misleading poor ol’ me. Then again, maybe the version I am using is pirated… from China!
As a belated postscript, I just would like to say that I don’t completely trust MSWord’s Grammar/Spell Check when it comes to the spelling of uncommon or iffy compound words like “underdeliver,” “overpromise,” and “cringeworthy.” In my own experience, when it’s possible to either hyphenate or combine two modifier words into just one word, MSWord’s Grammar/Spell Check almost always uses that “screaming red line” to prompt the user to take the middle ground—splitting the compound word into two words. To protect ourselves from possible disastrous results of such grammatical pussyfooting, we should always get the second opinion of an authoritative English dictionary.
RECOMMENDED REFRESHER:Hyphenating for clarity
