And again Walt! The hyphen completes the explanation nicely ;-)
Chris
On 24 Nov 2004, at 16:02, Walt Wayman wrote:
> Piers has nailed it down. I'll countersink the nail head.
>
> In the phrase "fifty cent piece," the words "fifty" and "cent"
> together constitute a compound adjective, which the more persnickety
> of us insist should be hyphenated, as in, "A fifty-cent piece is worth
> fifty cents."
>
> "Cent" is like "gallon," "pound," "dollar," and the like.
>
> We all know that a blivet is nine POUNDS of s**t in a five-POUND sack.
>
> We would say, "He was wearing a ten-GALLON hat while he pumped ten
> GALLONS of gas into his SUV."
>
> "I was fined fifty DOLLARS for propositioning an undercover lady cop I
> thought was a fifty-DOLLAR hooker."
>
> And so it goes.
>
> Walt, who usually gets 38 exposures on a 36-exposure roll.
>
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
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