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Usually I find compound adjectives quite straightforward, but I'm not so sure when it comes to the following:

A 210-million-people market

So how should I refer to a market 210 million people large with a compound adjective before the noun?

Hellion
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Yuri Borges
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  • Maybe a market with a 210-million-demographic. –  Nov 22 '19 at 09:47
  • No. A market with a 210-million demographic. – Michael Harvey Nov 22 '19 at 09:51
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    Hyphens are customary and usual. Inverted commas - no. Do not give personal opinions as advice. – Michael Harvey Nov 22 '19 at 12:08
  • @Jeep, "No. A market with a 210-million demographic", but a 210-million-demographic market. – Michael Harvey Nov 22 '19 at 13:02
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    Possible duplicate of Hyphenation in compound adjectives (this is the one with the most relevant title, but this subject has been done to death.) eg hyphenating measurements ... 'a hundred-meter race, a 250-page book, a fifty-year project, a three-inch-high statuette, it's three inches high,'. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 22 '19 at 15:44
  • @Edwin: Agree with you. – Ram Pillai Nov 22 '19 at 16:06
  • It’s fine. In this style of writing, where a noun like market is modified by a preceding adjective like 210-million-people, what matters most is the simple declarative style. There’s no harm in linking the nouns with hyphens, as in: “The supply was unlimited. The buyers were not. It was a pour-it-down-their-throats-till-they-can’t-take-it-anymore kind of market, and the Jack Company planned its sales campaign accordingly.” –  Nov 24 '19 at 19:48

1 Answers1

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Although “a 210-million-people market” follows the rules of punctuation, as Phil Sweet and Araucaria pointed out, grammatically it should be “a 210-million-person” market. I suggest making it “a market of 210 million people,” which is easier to read and say.

Literalman
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