English Lesson 5: Written-English Reminder

Many are raising eyebrows seeing these words thought to have been written mistakenly:

i.e.
two-page
nine-stage
three-year-old

Used in sentences:
The opposition's witness failed to submit the two-page report on time.
The water station uses a nine-stage purification system.
My three-year-old niece loves to eat mashed potato.

Above, the hyphenated compound words function as a modifier (an adjective) and followed by the noun being modified. Underlined words are the nouns being described.

Yes two, nine or three means many -PLURAL but in English if written with a punctuation " - " dash , "s" is omitted and must always be in Singular form. It is usually preceded by an article ("a "or "the").

two-pages = WRONG            two pages  =  RIGHT    
nine-stages = WRONG           nine stages  =  RIGHT    
three-years-old = WRONG    three years old = RIGHT

Used in sentences without the "  - " dash:
-My niece is three years old.
-I will buy a franchise of the water-refilling station that purifies water passing through nine stages.
-I have written a report in two pages.

You may see a lot of similarly-written words (number adjective+noun), just remember that the DASH = NO "s" or needs singular Noun form.  I hope I have given you a simple TIP to consider in writing.

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