Re: inch/inches

[Carl Glover <glover@msmary.edu>]

Dear Gillian,
	When "six-inch" comes before a noun ("fish"), it is actually a
compound adjective and should be hyphenated ("six-inch fish").  When 
the adjective follows the noun, it loses that compound status along with
the hyphen, and presumably picks up plural status.  I'm not sure why that
is, but if I had time to dig around more in the Chicago Manual of Style
(a.ka. the Publishers' Bible), I could probably find out.
					Warm regards,


					Carl W. Glover
					glover@msmary.edu

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Gillian Jordan wrote:

> Dear Grammarians,
> 
> On a paper a student wrote:  The lobster (three and a half inch) was too
> small  to meet the legal limit. 
> 
> When the Instructor said that the student should use "inches" instead of
> inch (because it was plural), the student disagreed and cited the following
> example: I caught a six inch fish.
> 
> Why is inch singular when is comes before the noun, yet plural when it
> comes after: The fish was six inches long?  Can you help?
> 
> 
> Assistant Professor of English
> UMA/UCB
> 262-7753
> 
>