🐊COMPOUND ADJECTIVES🐊

• I saw a man-eating alligator.

We are describing the alligator. What type of alligator is it? It is one that eats men (or people).

• I saw a man eating alligator.

This sentence without the hyphen sounds like a man is eating an alligator.
(man is the subject, eating is the verb, alligator is the object or thing that is being eaten).

As you can see, the hyphen (or lack of it) makes a big difference in the meaning of the sentence.

#Punctuation
#Grammar
#Adjectives

@PMPerfect1

📘COMPOUND ADJECTIVES📘

How do we know when to put a hyphen? 🤔

If you can use the word “and” between the two adjectives or words, then a hyphen isn't necessary.

🍃 She has a big blue book.

(Big and Blue are adjectives)

Can we say: She has a big and blue book.
✅ Yes, it is possible

🍃 He is a world famous singer.(Is this correct?)🤔

Can we say: He is a world and famous singer.
❎ No, it doesn't sound correct so we need a hyphen to join the words world and famous:

🍃He is a world-famous singer.
✅ Correct

Also, look at the following:

🍃 It's an old coal-mining town.

⚠️Notice how we didn't put a hyphen between the word old and coal. If we had have done that, we would have been referring to old coal, as in coal that is old. We want to emphasis that the town in old and not the coal.

Here we can say:

It is old and a coal-mining one.

#Punctuation
#Grammar
#Adjectives

@PMPerfect1