"4 year long" or "4 yearlong"?

Question

I am wanting to convey this sentence:

This year marks the end of the 4 year long 'Environmental Protection Victoria' project.

I have looked online to no avail, can anyone tell me if '4 year long' in this context is grammatically correct? Or if an alternate such as '4 year-long' or '4 yearlong' is better? The sites I've checked online all refer to yearlong (singular), but I'm wondering if the spelling is different when we're talking about multiple years. Thanks.

Welcome to EL&U. Please see Hyphenating measurements and the earlier Pluralization rule for “five-year-old children”, “20 pound note”, “10 mile run”. — choster, Dec 07 '15 at 20:47
Also the "hyphenation" section of Wikipedia's page on compound modifiers. — Hellion, Dec 07 '15 at 20:50
(in a nutshell, the preferred solution is: "... the 4-year-long 'Environmental Protection Victoria' project."; some would also recommend spelling out the number, so "four-year-long".) — Hellion, Dec 07 '15 at 20:51
Possible duplicate of Pluralization rule for "five-year-old children", "20 pound note", "10 mile run" — Tim Lymington, Dec 09 '15 at 18:23
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the answers and comments should be binned. — Hugh, Dec 10 '15 at 00:29

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 07 '15 at 21:08

1

In this case, it would be "4 year-long." If the sentence was along the lines of "The 'Environmental Protection Victoria' project was four years long," it wouldn't be hyphenated.

answered Dec 07 '15 at 21:08

Platinarius

44

"4 year long" or "4 yearlong"?

1 Answers1