Quote:

Musta been a hell of a duel, what with "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo."

I read that sentence about the thirty-second nature and didn't have (nor do I see) a problem with it myself, though I understand what the argument is. What, though, do you say to "Worse yet, the thirty-second duration of a small fish's memory guarantees that they can never, ever get used to it."

Had the writer used anything other than twenty, thirty, forty, etc., you'd probably not have noticed the (to me very slight) ambiguity. I suggest that had he said 30-second instead of thirty-second you would not have blinked an eye.



Whatever he might have said the hyphen is at best totally unnecessary.