Brer Ardith Hinton wrote to Brer Paul Quinn about Ha-ha again(2):

 AH> In both cases the hyphen seems to be more popular among Brits &
 AH> ex-Brits of a certain age... but these words are not commonly used in
 AH> North America.

 AH>  5)  hyphenated word regarded by the authors of my OXFORD CANADIAN
 AH> DICTIONARY as North American & Australian slang:

 AH>          widow-maker.

 AH> No doubt you'll excuse me while I ROFL here!  Bottom line is, I won't
 AH> quibble about how others choose to spell words which can't easily be
 AH> looked up.  :-))

The reality is that a hyphen between two words (two adjectives?) modifys
the noun that comes after them. i.e. a widow-maker, the B-26 Marauder a
WW2 twin-engine medium bomber - etc..  ^-modifier^      ^-----noun--^
    ^modifier-^        ^noun^

OTH, if the same words came after the noun; i.e. The B-26 Maruader was a
WW2 twin-engine medium bomber, nick-named the widow  maker - etc.
    ^modifier-^        ^noun^  ^modifier^     ^noun^

Which only goes to prove that you can slip this kind of stuff into any
sentence in any which way that you please, as most native English speakers
won't know the difference. 8^)


         R\%/itt



--- Ya have ta ask yourself: What Would Roy Witt Do?
 * Origin: Lone-Star BBS - San Antonio, Texas - USA  (1:387/22)