Rick Reuben wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote: Rick Reuben is completely out of his mind over the use of hyphens

Find the two words 'attack' and 'ad' with a hyphen connecting them in a major newspaper's article. Go ahead, bongsucker.

You like Ron Paul and use "bongsucker" and "stoner"as insults.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Wood Goblin wrote:Lars and Scott are right. The example the Chicago Manual of Style gives is "tenure track" vs. "tenure-track position."

Can you find me a usage of 'attack ad' in a major newspaper that uses a hyphen?

When I enter "attack-ad" ( in quotes ) into google, I get page after page of results of the two words grouped together without the hyphen. When I entered it without quotes, same thing.

If your way is correct, then I would expect you could find it in the New York Times with a hyphen.

Good luck:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&neww ... tnG=Search

I hit page 13 of the results without finding the two words hyphenated.

Is there a way to force Google to recognize punctuation in search queries? I honestly don't know. I tried searches for culture-negative and "culture-negative," and in both searches, it returned hits for both hyphenated and nonhyphenated terms.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Wood Goblin wrote:Lars and Scott are right. The example the Chicago Manual of Style gives is "tenure track" vs. "tenure-track position."

That is a bad example. It does not apply. 'tenure' and 'track' are both nouns, so it is acceptable to connect them with a hyphen. 'attack' is a verb and 'ad' is a noun. When 'attack' is used in the phrase 'attack ad', it becomes an adjective. No hyphen needed.

An attack dog is described as an attack dog.

I'll wait until someone can produce a newspaper article with 'attack-ad' in it. I think I'll be waiting a long time.

I can't believe i'm getting involved in this, but "attack" can be used as a noun and a verb. The ad is "attacking" the other candidate, but it also is "an attack."

so rick, rather than follow the rules of grammar, which everyone but you seems to be able to make sense out of here, you're going to insist that the only valid source for correct grammar and usage is a fucking newspaper headline? are you trying to be funny?

Rick Reuben wrote:

Wood Goblin wrote:Lars and Scott are right. The example the Chicago Manual of Style gives is "tenure track" vs. "tenure-track position."

That is a bad example. It does not apply. 'tenure' and 'track' are both nouns, so it is acceptable to connect them with a hyphen. 'attack' is a verb and 'ad' is a noun. When 'attack' is used in the phrase 'attack ad', it becomes an adjective. No hyphen needed.

An attack dog is described as an attack dog.

I'll wait until someone can produce a newspaper article with 'attack-ad' in it. I think I'll be waiting a long time.

The entry for participle + noun is as follows (emphasis theirs):

Chopped-liver pate, cutting-edge methods, their approach was on the cutting edge. (Adjective form hyphenated before a noun, seldom used after a noun.)

There are, however, in terms of real-life usage, plenty of exceptions to this rule. "Attack-ad context" may qualify as one of them.

no rick, you just don't understand what a compound adjective is. you don't understand usage. and because you have this problem, and you attack some guy on the internet about his usage when he hasn't actually made an error, this doesn't somehow mean that I or anyone else should waste time looking for newspaper headlines to suit your fancy. you're wrong. anyone who has the capacity to read and understand the rules of usage in the English language is free to see that. it's called a compound adjective. read about hyphenation and compound adjective clauses, and then you'll know what you're talking about. you can Google the NY Times a million ways to Sunday and that still won't make it a sensible approach to understanding the correct application of hyphens in compound adjective clauses.

Rick may be right about how quotation marks affect usage. I can't find anything in the CMoS regarding how quotation marks affect usage of compound adjectives.

"attack-ad", whether it's inside quotes or not, is a compound adjective clause that modifies the noun "context". you don't understand the first thing.

the fact the you rely on google searches for exact phrases to understand rules of grammar applications says a lot.

how about this thread maybe going back to being about Obama? why is it that threads about politics can be threads about politics only to a point, where rick reuben forces the conversation into a series of name callings and personal attacks?

a compound adjective clause does not have to be made up of two adjectives. it has to be made up of two or more words that modify a noun. that's what adjective means, yes?

This is getting dumber by the second. But here goes.

Rick Reuben wrote:No, an attack ad is a thing.

Yes, I know. What I meant was: In the post in question, Minotaur used the descriptor attack-ad to characterize a context, literally:

The term "negatives" CAN be and IS used in an "attack-ad" context.

The use of quotation marks here tells me Minotaur is calling into question the validity of both terms. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the use of hyphens in compound adjectives.

Now, to Rick's point, we are probably not going to see a lot of hyphenated attack-ad constructions in Google or the NYT or anywhere else, because most journalists would avoid it, favoring instead "So-called attack ads often make use of the term 'negatives.'"

But for the third motherfucking time: it's a judgment call for the writer to make. Would anyone have missed the hyphen, had it not appeared there? Probably not. But is it an incorrect application of the hyphen? No. The rule here is not definitive, as are the rules of subject-verb agreement. Does it demonstrate some sort of THC-addled incompetence on Minotaur's part? Definitely not. Will people continue to argue about this much longer? We will have to examine this in a future-time context.

Now, please: Back to Obamamania.

lars wrote:Now, to Rick's point, we are probably not going to see a lot of hyphenated attack-ad constructions in Google or the NYT or anywhere else, because most journalists would avoid it, favoring instead "So-called attack ads often make use of the term 'negatives.'"

Psst . . . Attack-ad style yields plenty of hits.