2

Which one is the correct (or more commonly used) form: "3-month retreat" or "3-months retreat"? How about "3-day" vs. "3-days" and "3-week" vs. "3-weeks" in the same context? (This is retreat as in meditation retreat and for U.S. English.)

Drux
  • 165

2 Answers2

8

Perhaps surprisingly, the accepted answer at "A place nearby" but not "A place good" answers this. However, that question title is not an intuitive match for this problem, and the relevant sentence is a bit buried.

In the phrase 3-month retreat, the main noun is retreat and three-month serves as an adjective (or an attributive noun, I suppose). Because it has more than one word, a hyphen is necessary to keep all the parts of that adjective together. Because it's an adjective, it remains month and not months: preceding adjectives are not inflected for number.

This serves for other similar collocations:

  • a six-foot coffin
  • a ten-year-old boy
  • a fifty-six-page book
Community
  • 1
Andrew Leach
  • 101,901
1

In American English, you'd use the singular. So "3 day weekend" or "8 week course" or, yes, "3 month retreat".

LessPop_MoreFizz
  • 3,646
  • 1
    +1 And no hyphen either? – Drux Aug 07 '14 at 11:23
  • 1
    @Drux there's no particularly consistent rule there, IIRC. The hyphen is not incorrect, nor is it's omission. – LessPop_MoreFizz Aug 07 '14 at 11:25
  • 1
    There is a consistent rule for hyphens, it's just people who are not consistent about using it. Search for related questions. – Neeku Aug 07 '14 at 11:32
  • @Neeku Thx. I'm usually applying rules from The Elements of Style which (if memory serves) would recommend one (but not two) hyphens. (Any rule better be consistent :) – Drux Aug 07 '14 at 11:36
  • 1
    Yes @Drux. If each adjective alone doesn't make sense being used with the noun, then you must use a hyphen. Neither "8 course" nor "week course" make sense, so "8-week course" is correct. Obviously no hyphen is needed between the adjective and the noun. – Neeku Aug 07 '14 at 11:39
  • @Neeku I was struggling with "more commonly used form" (see above), and there (perhaps inconsistently) decided against hyphens :) – Drux Aug 07 '14 at 11:45
  • Right @Drux, but going with the common mistakes isn't a good practice. Always stick to the correct form, and avoid spreading the common mistakes more than before. Watching "WordCrimes" is highly recommended. (: – Neeku Aug 07 '14 at 11:51