Victoria Tran
15 years old or 15 year old??? I'm reading a document, in which I find the phrase " 15 year olds". It seems " 15 year olds indicates all people who are 15 years old? But this structure is so strange to me. How can I create a similar phrase?
15 янв. 2015 г., 8:52
Ответы · 5
2
It should actually be written, "15-year-olds" (with hyphens). This is what we call a compound adjective or compound noun, created when we combine words to create a single adjective/noun (e.g., "one-way street," "state-of-the-art technology," "mother-in-law," etc.). The hyphens show that the words the connect are all acting as a single adjective. In your example, "15-year-olds" does refer to those teens who are 15 years old. With all compound adjectives/nouns, we remove the plural in the individual words when we connect them, so "years" becomes "-year-" (e.g., "a two-foot piece of wood" or "a six-day war").
15 января 2015 г.
Brad has a good answer about how to use these compound adjectives and how to write them, with one change: You only put hyphens between the words used as adjectives. "15-year olds". Here "olds" is the noun, so it isn't connected by the hyphen. "15-year-old students" Here "old" is part of the adjective so it is connected by the hyphen. As to your other question, it doesn't mean all 15-year olds, but only that there is more than one of them
15 января 2015 г.
it's depend th whole sentence but you can just say "15 years old"
15 января 2015 г.
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