60 - AL 18 - The First Cheese Week III

Apricot & Almond, and WOW you guys missed the point of cheese week.

I’m imposing a new rule. Since both of you love being so serious and philosophical about this blog, whenever I sense that you’re getting a bit too into it, I’m going to impose a cheese week. Cheese week is when you lighten, recount a nice lighthearted story that’s happened to you recently, and you take a break from trying to improve people’s lives. People don’t want their lives improved, they want to be miserable, that’s kind of a fact of life. It’s admirable, but kinda pointless.

Then again, I don’t know how much else there is to write about, so I guess you guys at least are keeping it entertaining for yourselves.

So, to help lighten things up, I’m going to talk about hyphens, and how they can change everything. My favorite kind of cheese will be involved, but really I’m very busy right now, and don’t want to write a whole blog.

“Man, that is a huge-ass boat”

A statement where the word ‘ass’ is clearly being used as an emphatic word, meaning very, very big. There are many possibilities that could replace the word ‘ass’ in this situation, but this is more about the placement of the typo. Consider this:

“Man, that is a huge ass-boat”

All the words are the same, in the same order, and the definition of each one is the same when considering them separately. But because that hyphen has jumped one word further along, the meaning totally changes. It raises some questions:

-       What is an ass-boat?

-       How huge are we talking?

-       Why are your pronouncing things so weirdly?

Etc., etc.

“A heavy-metal detector”

An obvious enough title for something, one that describes the object neatly and curtly. We know exactly what it describing and what it does. But:

“A heavy metal-detector”

Suddenly things are a little different. Now we are not describing the a device and it’s function, we are describing it’s weight, and it’s overall purpose.

-       What metals do you detect?

-       How heavy?

-       Why are you still pronouncing things weirdly?

“A 15-page document.”

Again, simple enough. But:

“A 15 page-document.”

Now you’re just talking gibberish. Of course a document has pages, do you know of any that don’t? Perhaps your document is made up of audio recordings, but then it wouldn’t really be a document, it would be a collection of ramblings in audio form.

“You’re a second-rate plumber” ~ “You’re a second rate-plumber”

“A money-back guarantee” ~ “A money back-guarantee”

A sentence that that guarantees nothing but that you will get something back, and that money will be involved somehow, probably from you handing it over to them.

You get my point. Hyphenate things properly, or you’ll run into any number of facepalm worthy moments.

Andrew Lyons.