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I'm eating clotted cream-covered scones.

or

I'm eating clotted-cream-covered scones.

or

I'm eating clotted cream covered scones.

Formally, I thought they'd have to be clotted-cream scones, but Grammarly insists they're merely clotted cream scones.

I thought a compound adjective should be hyphenated when it appears before the noun it modifies, but it looks like I'm wrong.

Can anyone tell me what the rule is here, please?

herisson
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Peter Piper Watermelon
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  • This is a general reference question. The Chicago Manual of Style has a multipage pdf download that summarizes and exemplifies its guidelines. – Arm the good guys in America Mar 23 '17 at 17:15
  • Your quoted sentenced differ from the rest of your text. The quotes include 'covered', the rest doesn't. This makes the question confusing. For what it's worth,I'd expect a 'clotted cream scone' to have clotted cream included in the recipe as an ingredient.if I was talking about a scone to which clotted cream had been applied I'd probably say I was 'eating a scone and clotted cream. A similar problem arises with distinguishing between a sausage roll and a 'roll and sausage'. – Spagirl Mar 23 '17 at 17:18
  • It's a rather specific question as far as I can see.I don't see any confusion. My quoted sentence was alluding to whether they're strictly "clotted-cream" scones or "clotted cream" scones. If they're the former, surely then they must also be "clotted-cream-covered" scones; if it's the latter, however, then they must be "". I'm not sure where you're from, but – Peter Piper Watermelon Mar 23 '17 at 19:09
  • This has been addressed here before. Wikipedia has: "Major style guides advise consulting a dictionary to determine whether a compound adjective should be hyphenated; compounds entered as dictionary headwords are permanent compounds, and for these, the dictionary's hyphenation should be followed even when the compound adjective precedes a noun. According to some guides, hyphens are unnecessary in familiar compounds used as ... – Edwin Ashworth Mar 23 '17 at 22:12
  • adjectives 'where no ambiguity could result', while other guides suggest using hyphens 'generally' in such compounds used as adjectives before nouns." // As clotted [cream scones] doesn't make sense, and as nobody on the internet seems to use a hyphen, clotted cream scones is the natural choice and the first set of style guides Wikipedia mentions the ones actually looking at what Anglophones choose to do. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 23 '17 at 22:18
  • It's not a compound adjective, but a compound noun (assuming it is a compound word in the first place!) – BillJ Mar 24 '17 at 07:48

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