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AnnaStrophic wrote: "Hyphens almost always resolve the ambiguity."
jheem responded: "But that would be wrong."
I quoted Fowler, albeit the disparaged second edition.
jheem responded: "...just don't tell me what's right ..."
There remain several bits of the new rule which are unresolved. I understand that jheem may say what is wrong and that I may not say what is right, but may jheem say what is right and am I still free to say what is wrong?
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You are free to say anything you like F.S. This is a place for open discussion. People don't always agree, but we have to be able to speak up.
Everybody quotes from their own personal base of knowledge. When it comes down to quoting one reference book against another, then who is to say what is right or wrong. It is then up to each person to decide which one they will follow.
But again, each one of us has a right to voice his opinion.
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Sure, Padre, you can say what is right and what is wrong, but I don't have to believe you or heed you. I, too, am free to say what is right and what is wrong, and you, too, are free to ignore me. Got that? Good.
I said that hyphens would not resolve the ambiguity which I pointed out earlier in this thread. They won't you know and quoting me out of context doesn't help your case. Quoting Fowler didn't help either. But let me repeat myself: hyphens will not resolve any of the ambiguities I pointed out in the two phrases earlier in this thread. Capisce? Bene.
I own both the first and the second editions of Fowlers. I like the first one better on account of its style. You like the second better because that's what you were exposed to at high school. Many disparage the second for reasons other than its style. I am not one of those critics. In another thread on AWADtalk, ipse dixit and argumentum ad verecundiam were brought up, and I thought I'd just take a little verbal jab at you and Fowler being hyphen authorities to be heeded. Sorry it went awry. I apologize to you and everybody here for any bruised feelings that I may have caused.
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But let me repeat myself: hyphens will not resolve any of the ambiguities I pointed out in the two phrases earlier in this thread.
Why not though?
Say you add a hyphen between baby and buggy in rubber baby-buggy bumpers does not "baby-buggy" then become the modifier of bumpers.
I'm not sure if modifier is the right term, there are those much more knowledgeable than I in terminology, but it is like when you say, an "all-out war", a second-hand book, a drawn-out speech...the hyphenated words elaborate on the final noun.
Wouldn’t that clear up the ambiguity? What am I not understanding?
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It's not enough for me, but then that's my problem. So, compare the following:
1a. rubber baby-buggy bumpers
1b. adj - noun - noun - noun
2a. American rock star shenanigans
2b. adj - noun - noun - noun
In (1a) rubber modifies bumpers, but in (2a) American modifies rock star. Why? How? Will hyphens help? I think the use or abuse of hypens is as idiomatic as nominal compounds.
Let's just drop it, and agree to disagree.
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Why does American modify rock star? I read it as modifying shenanigans, i.e., the shenanigans in America of one or more rock stars of unspecified nationality.
Bingley
Bingley
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stranger
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a word for foetal movements inside the womb...
>>gestaculation?
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gestaculation raju, come here a minute--I have something for you... jheem, I think you're right in saying hyphenating is idiomatic. I tend to have my own system (though it seems more like a non-system!) of doing it. In your second example, it would never have occurred to me that American might modify shenanigans. I think, in the case of these garden-path sentences  (and, thank you--I like that term), that we're just going to have to take them on a case-by-case status, dealing with some "as is". The rewrite above sounded okay, but others would be bordering into the ridiculousness of that statement by Churchill: the Something, up with which I will not put.
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I feel we are in danger of slopping the definition of garden path sentences over into areas where it doesn't belong. Things like my fave, 'British Left Waffles on Falklands' are not garden path sentences, just sentences that can be humorously, if sometimes torturously, misinterpreted. A garden path sentence is one that you think you are following quite nicely until you get toward the end and find it suddenly seems to mean nothing at all. This, as in the case of the horse raced past the barn, is generally because you have been given a perfectly reasonable and grammatical structure that just doesn't happen to fit the final sentence. Usually this is to be resolved by restructuring the sentence, a luxury not always available to deadline threatened headline writers.
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Churchill: the Something, up with which I will not put.
A quote from a cable Churchill sent to his publisher when the publisher admonished the Great Man about his ending sentences with prepositions. The Churchill answer was "That is a pedantry up with which I will not put." The cable, I was told, was framed and hung in the publisher's office.
Hyphens : The A.P. Stylebook, which aims at making English clear and precise, says: "Hyphens are joiners. Use them to avoid ambiguity or to form a single idea from two or more words. Use a hyphen whenever ambiguity would result if it were omitted. The president will speak to small-businessmen. (Businessmen is normally one word But the president will speak to small businessmen) is unclear."
The A.P. goes on for 8 1/2, single-spaced inches regarding the use of hyphens in : compound modifiers, two-thought compounds, compound proper names and adjectives, prefixes and suffixes, avoid duplicated vowels and triple consonants, with numerals and (finally) suspensive hyphenation, which I shall spare you.
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