Magic with adjectives

Today I'm going to teach you how to make an ordinary, everyday phrase into an adjective. It'll be fun. I promise.

This super-amazing, magical power is used when a phrase is longer than one word but it's technically being used as an adjective. For example, let's pretend you're a grandma, and someone did something nice for you. You might write them a card to say thank you. Thank you is two words, so you may be concerned about attempting to make this an adjective because readers will be completely unaware that these words go together to describe the appropriate noun. Fear not. You can (and by can I mean you have to because grammar says) simply hyphenate the term.

In other words, you can write a thank-you card.

Now I know this seems a little odd, and you don't see it very often. You see it more commonly with numerical terms, like a three-mile run (ugh) or a quarter-inch cable. It's the same concept. If you don't hyphenate the terms, technically the adjectives there are mile and inch. You're not going for three one-mile runs. You're going for one three-mile run. See how much that hyphen simplified things? Similarly, Grace Potter doesn't have an inch cable that she's looking for a quarter of. She's asking for her quarter-inch cable.

And you, Grandma, are not writing a you card. You're writing a thank-you card.

Some of you sharp readers may have noticed I also hyphenated super-amazing. That's because it's important to note that the power to hyphenate adjectives is not just amazing. It's super-amazing. Yes, that means you should be doing that whenever you use the word super in that way.

I'm very sorry to introduce another brand-new rule you're now aware you're not following.