I am writing an assignment, and I need to say, "6", "year","old", and "girl". I wrote 6 year old girl, but I keep getting a blue underline suggesting it is grammatically incorrect. How should I be writing this, and why?
Asked
Active
Viewed 82 times
0
-
2I'd write it as 6-year-old girl. – BillJ May 29 '17 at 09:56
-
You can always turn off Word's spell checker in File / Options / Proofing. – Yosef Baskin May 29 '17 at 11:35
-
Six-year-old is one word, so it has to be hyphenated. If the words in a six-year-old girl were separated, the phrase would have to go after the noun (and year would become plural): a girl six years old. Because of the Eleven-Year-Old Boy Rule. – John Lawler May 29 '17 at 13:33
1 Answers
0
It should be a six year old girl as six is a small number. There are certain rules as to when you can use a numeral vs spelling. As a general thumb rule, use spellings for the numbers one to one hundred, one to ten, any word that can be written with one or two words, and so on. Note that these rules are not etched in stone.
Please check this reference: Grammar Girl
Compound modifier 'six year old' modifies the noun 'girl'. So, some text processors like Word hyphenate the compound modifier. So you can try, 'six-year-old'
honeybadger
- 755
-
That is the way I have been writing it, but I keep getting the green underline. – Trina May 29 '17 at 09:51
-