Hyphen - Varied Meanings

Varied Meanings

Some strong examples of semantic changes caused by the placement of hyphens:

  • Disease-causing poor nutrition, meaning poor nutrition that causes disease
  • Disease causing poor nutrition, meaning a disease that causes poor nutrition
  • A man-eating shark is a shark that eats humans.
  • A man eating shark is a man who is eating shark meat.
  • A blue-green sea is a sea whose color is somewhere between blue and green.
  • A blue green sea is a contradiction, unless "blue" or "green" are used contextually to mean something other than a color.
  • Three-hundred-year-old trees are an indeterminate number of trees that are 300 years old.
  • Three hundred-year-old trees are three trees that are 100 years old.
  • Three hundred year-old trees are 300 trees that are 1 year old.

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Famous quotes containing the words varied and/or meanings:

    “See, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
    Sullen, and sad, with all his rising train;
    Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
    These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
    And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
    Congenial horrors, hail!”
    —James Thomson (1700–1748)

    “Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.”
    —Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)