What's wrong with "They're talking about 3 feet of rain"?

Post #419,994 by CRConrad 8/27/17 7:44:57 AM 8/27/17 7:44:57 AM Reply	What's wrong with "They're talking about 3 feet of rain"?
Post #419,995 by Another Scott 8/27/17 1:11:43 PM 8/27/17 1:11:43 PM Reply	Phrasing... They're talking about 50" of rain now. NHC at NOAA: HAZARDS AFFECTING LAND ---------------------- RAINFALL: Harvey is expected to produce additional rainfall accumulations of 15 to 25 inches through Friday over the middle and upper Texas coast, including the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area. Isolated storm totals may reach 50 inches in this region. These rains are currently producing catastrophic and life- threatening flooding, and flash flood emergencies are in effect for portions of southeastern Texas. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRAVEL IN THE AFFECTED AREA IF YOU ARE IN A SAFE PLACE. DO NOT DRIVE INTO FLOODED ROADWAYS. Please see warnings and other products issued by your local National Weather Service office for additional information on this dire and life-threatening situation. Elsewhere, Harvey is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 5 to 15 inches farther south toward the lower Texas coast, farther west toward the Texas Hill Country, and farther east through southwest and central Louisiana. A list of rainfall observations compiled by the NOAA Weather Prediction Center can be found at: www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc1.html It's not the "talking about" that's the problem, obviously. ;-) It's going to be a very expensive disaster. Storm and sanitary sewers, cooling water for power plants, etc., etc., etc. are all going to be affected and be hugely expensive to repair/replace... Cheers, Scott.
Post #419,997 by drook 8/27/17 5:04:27 PM 8/27/17 5:04:27 PM Reply	Hard to comprehend Three feet over an entire flood plain funneled down into existing riverbeds, that's easily an order of magnitude higher. Goddam that's a lot of water. -- Drew
Post #420,000 by static 8/27/17 9:10:58 PM 8/27/17 9:10:58 PM Reply	I'm having a hard time picturing 5" of rain, never mind 50".
Post #420,003 by CRConrad 8/28/17 4:11:26 AM 8/28/17 4:11:26 AM Reply	No, I meant: What's that freaking hyphen doing there?
Post #420,006 by Another Scott 8/28/17 8:59:17 AM 8/28/17 8:59:17 AM Reply	It's another illustration of my weird typing skills. "3-feet" is a unitary item in the sentence, so it should be joined by a hyphen. It's probably me mis-remembering some grammar rule rather than being actually correct. No time to check at the moment. ;-) Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #420,007 by drook 8/28/17 9:47:14 AM 8/28/17 9:47:14 AM Reply	"I have a 6-foot ladder" -- Drew
Post #420,008 by Another Scott 8/28/17 10:28:06 AM 8/28/17 10:28:06 AM Reply	Re: "I have a 6-foot ladder" http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-a-hyphen?page=2 Though it probably could be left out since there is little chance for ambiguity in my case. And the "of" there in my first example probably complicates the rules... FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
Post #420,009 by drook 8/28/17 10:37:22 AM 8/28/17 10:37:22 AM Reply	My example was a compound modifier, yours was just wrong :-P But it looked the same as mine. I frequently make that same typo and have to catch it on a second read. -- Drew
Post #420,010 by Another Scott 8/28/17 10:48:29 AM 8/28/17 10:48:29 AM Reply	I used to subscribe to Car and Driver magazine... At least one of the writers there used to have fun with compound adjectives with 15 hyphens between them... Probably helped me forget the rules. Cheers, Scott.
Post #420,011 by drook 8/28/17 10:49:54 AM 8/28/17 10:49:54 AM Reply	One of the authors I worked with called herself the Queen of Unnecessary Capitalization -- Drew
Post #420,012 by Another Scott 8/28/17 10:51:25 AM 8/28/17 10:51:25 AM Reply	I do that too. I blame it on taking German as a foreign language...
Post #420,013 by Andrew Grygus 8/28/17 11:02:26 AM 8/28/17 11:02:26 AM Reply	Didn't take German, but . . . I use a lot of capitalization to emphasize important words in a paragraph, especially in recipes. As for hyphenation, I do it how I want, and English teachers will just have to live with it.
Post #420,014 by drook 8/28/17 11:53:29 AM 8/28/17 11:53:29 AM Reply	I do it with quotes If I'm quoting a single word at the end of a sentence, the period (or question mark, etc) goes outside the quotes. I understand it's done this way in some other English-speaking countries. I'll also put the period/question mark outside the quotes if it's not logically related to the quote. Eg: Can you say with a straight face, "Trump is a competent president"? The quoted part is not a question. The question is about the quoted part. -- Drew
Post #420,021 by Ashton 8/28/17 2:47:27 PM 8/28/17 2:47:27 PM Reply	Dunno when it was that modrin-Muricans morphed into eschewing Capitalization.. All I Know is that: those early-Americans we are so fond of quoting: used Caps pretty much as you describe. As do I. But what do I Know!? [Caps saves n keystrokes/merely for italics within the antediluvian interfaces, up with which we must put ..even in 2017 er, qed]
Post #420,033 by CRConrad 8/29/17 3:09:09 AM 8/29/17 3:09:09 AM Reply	No it isn't. In "there's a 3-ft sinkhole" it is, but in "the water is 3 ft deep" it's separate words You don't have three-children either, you have three children. Your car doesn't have 4-wheels, it has 4 wheels. But it has 4-wheel drive or 4-wheel-drive, since what it has is a single drive system, one attribute of which is that it works on all four wheels; that's what makes it four-wheel. Not that I was going for you in particular, Scott; I thought you'd do a double-take at having it pointed out and perhaps be able to tell me where it actually comes from. I've been wondering my head off since about 2010; before that, you rarely saw these confused, but now it seems almost nobody can get it right. Anybody else have any idea how come? -- Christian R. Conrad Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi (Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
Post #420,045 by Another Scott 8/29/17 11:12:03 AM 8/29/17 11:12:03 AM Reply	I blame Twitter and Autocorrect. They're always responsible. ;-) Seriously, I dunno. English is such a bastard language that if one (or I, anyway) doesn't frequently review the various rules and conventions then it's very easy to break them. Cheers, Scott. (Who got tripped up on "due to/owing to" a year or so ago.)

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