Compound modifiers What is the correct placement for them when you have two or three different hyphenated modifiers describing one head noun? I know there is an order to follow when talking about DESC

Raul Michue

Compound modifiers

What is the correct placement for them when you have two or three different hyphenated modifiers describing one head noun? I know there is an order to follow when talking about DESCRIBING ADJECTIVES or CLASSIFYING ADJECTIVES, but what do you do when you find compound adjectives in a group or with a combination of single-word modifiers?

For example:

Is it SUITABLE DRESS-UP clothes or DRESS-UP SUITABLE clothes? (I'd choose the frist one, but it is just a hunch)

Is it EXCELLENT TOMATO-AND-CHEESE sandwich or TOMATO-AND-CHEESE EXCELLENT sandwich? (Again, I would choose the first one, but I'm not so sure as of the reason)

Is it HOME-COOKED READY-TO-TAKE meal or READY-TO-TAKE HOME-COOKED meal?

Oct 1, 2015 2:57 PM

Comments · 4

Compound modifiers follow the normal rules of adjective order. Look at the compound phrases as single ideas, and then order them appropriately.

As a general rule, the adjectives which are more closely related to the noun are closer to it. Adjectives describing innate qualities (color, style, etc.) are normally next to the noun and comparative adjectives (number, quality, etc.) usually come before the other adjective(s).

The big, blue marble.

Also, if one adjective is describing another, then the describing adjective should come before the adjective it is describing.

The light blue marble is different than The blue, light marble.

With the examples you gave, I would go with the following:

Suitable dress-up clothes as the main characteristic of the clothes is that they are fancy, and apart from being fancy, they are appropriate.

Excellent tomato-and-cheese sandwich as the kind of sandwich is tomato and cheese, and the quality of it is excellent.

Ready-to-take home-cooked meal as the type of meal it is home-cooked is more closely tied to the meal than its current state of ready-to-take. This one in particular I think could go either way, though if you flip it around, I would put a comma: home-cooked, ready-to-take meal.

So overall, just think of the compound modifiers as a single word and then consider order.

Does that help?

October 1, 2015

I think if you understand the idea behind adjective order, then using compound modifiers shouldn't be hard. If you were wondering whether hyphenated compounds follow a different rule, no they don't.

As Charlie explained quite thoroughly, the correct phrases are:

Suitable dress-up clothes

An excellent tomato-and-cheese sandwich

A ready-to-take home-cooked meal

October 4, 2015