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Beth Volbach said:
> IF it was correct to say "lower right-hand corner," you're right about
> that hyphen. But it's not. I just finished deleting a bunch of
> "-hand"s from some documents that were written, obviously, before I
> started working here.
There's too much blood in my caffeine stream this morning, so my
thought process is sluggish. Bear with me.
At first I thought Beth was objecting to the hyphen. How odd. I tried
to find a reference to support my feeling that hyphenating right-hand
is the thing to do. It took a few minutes to remember where "R" came
in the alphabet but, sure enough, the dictionary (and The Elements of
Style, when I got around to checking it) showed right-hand with a
hyphen.
I was feeling pretty smug when I read the message again and it occurred
to me that Beth was objecting to the "-hand" part. Back to Strunk &
White and the dictionary. Both use examples that are analagous to
"lower right-hand corner." The Elements of Style, for example, says,
"Keep right-hand and left-hand margins roughly the same width."
I turn to S&W and the dictionary for guidance fairly frequently. If
they're not solid points of reference -- if I'm behind the times --
I'd like to know. So -- who says the "-hand" construction is not
correct?
Susan
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Susan P.S. Stewart
Manager, Product Documentation
Avalanche Development Co.
Boulder, CO
