how-to-use-hyphens

Queen Bees Stinging Mad Over Compound Adjectives

Choire · 09/17/07 08:30AM

In one of the odder contretemps of our time, New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr has gone off on gossip sheet Page Six over their description of Out magazine as a "gay-lifestyle mag." Says Burr: "'gay lifestyle' is a purely political term with a purely political meaning, and it's simply, factually inaccurate." We're siding with him on this: Out is obviously a "gay lifestyle magazine" but it is not a "gay-lifestyle magazine." We find Burr's understanding of hyphenation and compound adjectives rather unspeakably hot, and now we would very much like him to criticize our perfumes, if you know what we mean, wink wink. But more importantly: Is the "gay lifestyle mag" in trouble? Its ad pages are looking rough.