English Question
Dec. 7th, 2007 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dogriverWhen I did my English poll sometime ago, several of you said your
English was "impeccable". Being only of the "better than most" species
myself, I thought I'd defer to those in the know, as I pose the
following question.
In this future New York Times bestseller I'm proofreading, we
read the following sentence:
Kingdom Protista is a diverse group of living things that contains
animal-like plantlike, and funguslike organisms.
Why is animal-like hyphenated, while plantlike and funguslike are not?
This is consistent in the text, so would not be a print error. I suppose
I could consult a dictionary and see which of the three words are or are
not in the dictionary, that might provide a clue. Anyway, o
impeccabiliacs out there, if you could answer my question, I would be
mildly grateful.
English was "impeccable". Being only of the "better than most" species
myself, I thought I'd defer to those in the know, as I pose the
following question.
In this future New York Times bestseller I'm proofreading, we
read the following sentence:
Kingdom Protista is a diverse group of living things that contains
animal-like plantlike, and funguslike organisms.
Why is animal-like hyphenated, while plantlike and funguslike are not?
This is consistent in the text, so would not be a print error. I suppose
I could consult a dictionary and see which of the three words are or are
not in the dictionary, that might provide a clue. Anyway, o
impeccabiliacs out there, if you could answer my question, I would be
mildly grateful.
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Re: animal-like vs. funguslike
Date: 2007-12-07 11:24 pm (UTC)