orthography - Confusion over the general rules governing the use of the hyphen in English

I often get confused by the rules for using hyphens. According to this entry from the Oxford Dictionaries web site, I must always use a hyphen in these cases:

1. Hyphens are used in many compound words to show that the component words have a combined meaning.


2. Hyphens can be used to join a prefix to another word, especially if the prefix ends in a vowel and the other word also begins with one (e.g. pre-eminent or co-own).


3. Hyphens can also be used to divide words that are not usually hyphenated.

Ok, with these three rules in mind, I suppose I should write living-room: after all, these two words have a combined meaning. To support this argument, I may say we write bedroom — one word only — which means we’ve combined bed and room to refer to one thing, the bedroom. So living room should either be hyphenated or written together as only one single word.

Equally, food handling department should be written as food-handling department even though as with living-room, I have never actually seen it written with a hyphen.

I am a bit confused. Isn’t hyphenating these words arguably a grammatical error, or does hyphen usage vary from one country to another? (I mean, for example, that perhaps in England they write living room, in Australia livingroom, and in Canada perhaps living-room.)

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As tchrist pointed out in the comment section, hyphen usage has nothing to do with grammar. It's only a ortographic convention.

The reason I'm asking this question is: I once took an IELTS preparing course and there was a question whose answer was food-handling department but I wrote food handling department. My answer was considered to be wrong - according to the entity behind the course, food-handling department was the only acceptable answer.

Given hypen usage is only convention and not grammar, can we really say I got that question wrong?

possessives - photographers' club of detroit or photographers club of detroit?

I prefer non-possessive form of the name of the club: photographers club of Detroit. Is it correct?

syntactic analysis - Should I use the word "that" in a sentence when it is not required?

In this sentence

My sister told me that she didn't want pancakes for breakfast.

The sentence would still make sense even if the word "that" is taken out. How would one decide to use the word "that" in a sentence? Is it considered better writing when "that" is not used when it is not required?

Answer

Short answer

As a rough rule of thumb, if the verb in the main clause is both high frequency and simple, we tend to prefer to omit that [except in highly formal writing]. In other circumstances we normally prefer to leave it in.

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Full answer

My sister told me that she didn't want pancakes for breakfast.

In the sentence above, the phrase she didn't want pancakes for breakfast is a Complement of the adjective told. This type of clause is known as a content clause (as opposed to a relative clause, or a comparative clause).

Content clauses are often introduced by the subordinator that:

• I know [that you ate my last chocolate biscuit].

We only use that with declarative content clauses, not interrogative ones or exclamative ones:

• *I wonder that if she is going to the party. (ungrammatical)


• *I saw that how big the elephant was! (ungrammatical)

When to use that in declarative content clauses

We always use that with a content clause when a content clause is the Subject of a sentence:

• [That you were late again] will not impress the powers that be.


• *[You were late again] will not impress the powers that be. (ungrammatical)

We also always use that if the content clause has been moved to a position before the Subject:

• [That I need help] I freely admit.

The sentence above is a version of I freely admit that I need help, where the Complement of admit has been moved to before the Subject, I.

We rarely use that if the content clause is the Complement of a preposition:

• I will see you after you've finished your meeting.


• *I will see you after that you have finished your meeting. (ungrammatical)

[There are a handful of very unusual prepositions such as notwithstanding which allow that.]

In nearly all other cases where the content clause is the Complement of a verb, noun, or adjective the word that is optional. It can be omitted or included as you see fit:

• I know that you ate my biscuits.


• I know you ate my biscuits.


• I'm happy you ate my biscuits


• I am happy that you ate my biscuits.


• The fact you ate my biscuits really gets my goat.


• The fact that you ate my biscuits really gets my goat.

We are far more likely to omit that it's the Complement of a simple high frequency verb, adjective or noun. We are also far less likely to omit that in formal writing:

• The notion you ate my biscuit is laughable. (slightly awkward because of notion)


• We therefore need to underline we going to be there. (awkward because formal and because of the long as well as low frequency verb underline)

Conclusion

In the Original Poster's sentence the content clause is the complement of the simple and high frequency verb tell. The context is also not formal. The Original Poster can therefore freely omit that. The sentence will be both grammatical and appropriate.

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References

^{Most of this information is available in: A Student's Introduction to English Grammar Huddleston & Pullum, 2005.}

grammaticality - Can someone please explain the validity of "Noun is." as an answer to a question

I am first language English and currently supporting a Japanese teacher in teaching Japanese students English. I've run across an issue twice where my initial reaction was to call it an error, but it is prolific in their teaching material and I'm starting to doubt myself.

In response to "Which is---?" or "What is ---?" questions the textbook recommends the answer "Answer is." This sounds very wrong to me.

Example.
"Which is higher, Mt. Everest or Mt. Fuji?"
The textbook gives the answer "Mt. Everest is."
I think "Mt. Everest." or "Mt. Everest is higher than Mt. Fuji." are both better, or at least more natural, answers.

"What is the month that comes after July?" "August is."
I think it should be "August.", "August comes after July.", "August is the month that comes after July." etc etc.

I'm hoping someone can explain to me why this is wrong. If it's right, I'm looking for someone to tell me why it feels wrong to me. (I'm from the Canadian East-Coast if its a dialect thing. Not a Newfie or anything but I do say aboat.)

backshifting - I'd appreciate it if + + until +

These three examples have the same construction of

I'd appreciate it if you + past tense verb + ... + until + subject + present or past tense verb...

The first one has the present tense verb finish after until whereas the other two have the past tense verbs got and were:

From the movie 'Kingsman' (video clip):

(1) Listen boys, I’ve had a rather emotional day. So whatever your beef with Eggsy is, I’d appreciate it enormously if you could leave us in peace until I finish this lovely pint of Guinness.

From the book "The Ultimate Plan: A Financial Survival Guide for Life's Unexpected Events":

(2) So if you must have an attack, I'd appreciate it if you could wait until we got to Broadway.

From the book "Touching Darkness: Number 2 in series":

(3) 'Still, Melissa,' he said, 'this is a classroom, and I'd appreciate it if you waited until you were out in the hall before turning that thing on.'

Note that all the verbs after until (finish, got, and were) describe a future situation.

Can you have the past tense verb finished in (1)?

Also, can you have the present tense verbs get and are in (2) and (3), respectively?

Is there a rule that determines the tense of the verbs after until?

honorifics - Is there a rule for using or not using the definite article before people’s titles?

The use of the definite article before titles is a confusing area - I always hear “Queen Elizabeth visited” and never “The Queen Elizabeth visited”. But I always hear “The Prince of Wales visited” and never “Prince of Wales visited”.

Is there a rule for using — or not using — the definite article before people’s titles?

Answer

In certain cases and contexts these are virtual proper names of persons. It should be Her Majesty The Queen. This is why you get The Prince of Wales, The Archbishop of Canterbury, The President of the United States.. etc.

So if you were referring to Prince Charles, it would be Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, not The Prince Charles. If you referred to his title it would be The Prince of Wales.

So The applies to the title, not necessarily the person but it depends on case and context.

grammaticality - Is "Whom should I give this job to?" grammatically correct?

I found a grammar rule about when to choose "who" and "whom".

Rule. Use this he/him method to decide whether who or whom is correct:

he = who

him = whom

So I have a question about correctness of the following question:

Who should I give this job to?

According to this rule we should have used whom instead of who, because I should give this job to him, not I should give this job to he. But there's a man who keeps telling me that

Whom should I give this job to?

is wrong. Please clarify?