Neil McCauley
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- Sep 10, 2010
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Because when you introduce "a" "ten-minute" becomes a compound adjective describing "drive". "A ten-minute drive". Adjectives are invariable (in English).
- ten minutes' drive or a ten-minute drive, butnot a ten minutes' drive.
Could somebody clarify why this is true? 'The station is a ten minutes' drive from...' seems to work to me. Why does the addition of 'a' make it improper?
Thanks
I think the hyphen is incorrect here. "Ten minutes' drive"....is ten-minutes' drive...
Well, I'm not a native speaker, so I can well be wrong. But in my opinion, "ten minutes" in "ten minutes' drive" is not an adjective. It's like "ten minutes" in "it lasts ten minutes". And as in this sentence you don't need the hyphen.Oh, well now I'm really confused! :-|
:up: BC is right.I think the hyphen is incorrect here. "Ten minutes' drive".
Oh, well now I'm really confused! :-|
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Equally, 'ten-minutes' drive', you hve a problem if you remove 'minutes'', and that's what the hyphen tells us.
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