On a morning walk, I picked up a sales flyer for a luxury building–luxurious except for the missing hyphens. How many hyphens would you insert in the passage below? Feel free to list your hyphenated words.
Stunning stand alone home. Striking design and functionality come together in all living spaces. Walls of windows with abundant light. Spacious great room with gourmet kitchen. Beautiful real hardwoods, floating stairs, custom steel railings, sleek modern fireplace. Top floor master suite with spa like 5 piece bathroom. Huge roof deck with wet bar and nice views. Includes off street parking space and exterior storage room.
Unsure? Here's a tip for you:
We use a hyphen to connect two or more parts of a compound adjective that comes before the word it modifies. For example, "two story building" must be changed to "two-story building" because "two" and "story" combine to form one adjective. (It's not two buildings or a story building–it's a two-story building.) In contrast, "two exclusive buildings" takes no hyphen because the adjectives "two" and "exclusive" work separately–not in combination–to describe the buildings.
I'll post a solution after you get a chance to post yours.
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Lynn
Syntax Training
