32
I don't think you're going to be corrected or admonished for using any of these three. Google understands you perfectly no matter how you type it. Wikipedia features all three as well.
Personally, I'd write it as 'backend' or 'back end' as I'm not a fan of over-hyphenating (excuse my hypocrisy) unnecessarily.
(NGram removed)
The NGram essentially supports ...
23
In your examples
rollback
is a compound word consisting of the verb to roll and the preposition back.
It is similar to
turnoff
which is composed of to turn and off.
The past tenses are
rolled back
turned off
You may be confusing the nouns with the similar sounding verb phrases
Q: Did you roll back the rollback of the databases?
A: Yes, ...
23
You can
Spell it as back end when used as a noun, as for example "I am working on the back end of a project", and
Spell it as back-end when used as an adjective, as for example "The back-end technologies for this project will be Apache, MySQL and PHP."
Hyphenating compound adjectives is common in English, and both the links above use the hyphenated form ...
16
Tenses always apply to verbs, so to see where to apply it, you need to figure out which part of the compound (or hyphenated) word is the verb.
"Rollback" is a compound word, consisting of the verb "roll" and the preposition "back", as Peter indicated. As such, "rolling" is what you are doing, and "back" indicates where you're rolling (as opposed to rolling ...
16
There are 2 ways to express the country of birth.
born as a(n) [American, Canadian...]
rewritten as:
[American, Canadian...]-born
born in [America, Canada...]
It is similar with the pattern:
(adjective) - ("past participle" of a noun)
e.g.:
short-sleeved = with a short sleeve
fast-paced = with a fast pace
Compare with:
(...
13
Your interpretation is correct. "It" refers to the capture of the drone under the described conditions.
I had completely missed the extra "a" hiding in plain sight. Yeah, that's a typo. It should read "...is not a combat vessel".
11
We don't use "homesick" for a child crying on the first day of school. When people are homesick, it actually is from missing their home. Usually the familiarity of it, the ability to be oneself there, the feeling of safety (either physical, mental, or emotional), or the culture of the area (especially if one is in another country).
If we simply used ...
11
Collins considers "back yard" as two words permissible in British English.
Of course, in British English the standard term is usually "back garden" (always two words), but "yard" might be used if the area was paved (as Collins indicates). "Back yard" is also used metaphorically, which "back garden" rarely is.
10
shoot & shot are film/movie & professional photographic terms.
shoot describes the 'event' at which film stock is used to make the movie/photographs.
The shoot is a general term for the entire occasion, at which there may be several hundred people, all doing different tasks that make up the event; from catering, locations & logistics, transport,...
10
the rule for word order in this case is
{type}{thing}
so, to take your examples in order:
phone number
the thing that you have (say 01234 567890) is a number. What type of number is it? it's a phone number.
file type
a bit more abstract, what we have is a type (say, .doc). What sort of type is it? it's a file type.
school bag
the thing here ...
10
The past participle formed from a part of the body(eye, arm, leg, foot, etc) means "having said body part", as you say; a number in front indicates how many there are:
a three-legged stool
a one-eyed pirate
a four-armed deity
a seven-headed dragon
a three-headed dog
With units of measure we do not do this; rather we use the unit of ...
10
I think this is no different in English than in your own native language. You can make up almost anything you like, but you have to consider the following:
Has it been used before, and if so, does it already has a defined meaning?
Does it accurately convey the meaning you intend?
Will it sound clever or will it sound awkward?
Is there another expression ...
9
The phrase you're looking for is noun adjunct or adjectival noun. In English, we can use a noun like an adjective to modify another noun. The second noun is the thing itself - in this case, trouble. The first noun, the one that works like an adjective, tells us what kind of thing it is - in this case, cough, so it is trouble regarding a cough or trouble ...
9
From the Microsoft Style Guide:
back end, back-end
Don't use if you can substitute a more specific term, such as server,
operating system, database, or network.
Two words as a noun. Hyphenate as an adjective.
9
Both interpretations of the sentence are correct, but convey subtly different meanings. The meaning could have been clarified if they had added commas and chosen "which" or "that" appropriately.
The first interpretation would be more obviously the intended
meaning if "that" had been used instead of "which", and repeated:
He asked a lot of questions that ...
8
It is common at publicity events such as film premiers for the stars to walk along a red carpet to the event's entrance.
Lesser mortals, both press and public, are kept behind a barrier and off the carpet. This barrier is usually made of a red rope, to match the carpet.
Those behind the red rope will take photographs and ask for autographs. They will ...
8
In between (2 words) is the correct punctuation for an adverbial phrase, which is how the phrase functions in your sentence. It's also the correct punctuation for a prepositional phrase (e.g., "I live in between two skyscrapers"), but that usage is unnecessary since you can just substitute "between".
In-between, with a hyphen, is used as an adjective ("an ...
8
"American-born" means that someone was an American citizen from birth. It doesn't necessarily mean they were physically "Born in the USA."
"America-born" does mean they were physically born in the USA. For most countries, that does not necessarily mean they are a citizen of the country where they were born, but the USA is an exception to that general rule, ...
8
Meriam-Webster gives actual definitions for both of those words.
Sundown:
: SUNSET sense 2
Sunup:
: SUNRISE
In short, both of these are fine:
She took a factory job working from sundown to sunup.
She took a factory job working from sunset to sunrise.
Merriam-Webster also defines similar words as they relate to the moon.
Moonrise:
1 ...
7
Shelfful is different from scaffold because it is a compound word (shelf + full), so the two f's are truly separate. Removing the ligature between the f's re-emphasizes this construction. Selffulfilling is another one that makes a little more sense without the ligature (selffulfilling).
Not all fonts ligature anyways, so in my browser shelffull and "...
7
In the "getting-to-know-you stuff", the hyphenated part is a 'modifying phrase'. It basically fulfills the role of an adjective. Outwardly it reminds a 'compound adjective', but does not have the typical characteristics of an adjective.
The key thing that makes it work like an adjective here is that it is in the attributive position relative to the noun "...
7
Both alternants are plausible, though it’s not about 'compounding' two clauses, but about a coordination of two verb phrases.
[1] He asked a lot of questions which [were none of his business] and
[generally managed to annoy everyone].
[2] He [asked a lot of questions which were none of his business], and
[generally managed to annoy everyone].
...
7
It's "left-hand side", the side nearest the left hand.
"Left hand" forms a compound adjective and so should be hyphenated.
7
First, the sentence is an idiomatic way to say that she was working a long night shift. Her work hours weren't really tied to the sun's rising and setting. Depending on a city's latitude, the difference between when the sun sets in the summer and winter can be as much as four or five hours. In a poetic sense, the book is saying she arrived to work around ...
6
Two words are joined by a hyphen when the collocation occurs in a non-standard context. For instance, we speak of the front end (space, no hyphen) of a car when this acts a noun phrase:
The front end of my Chrysler was dented.
My Chrysler was hit on the front end.
But when we use front end as an attributive, we hyphenate it:
My Chrysler suffered a ...
6
Between on its own is a preposition while in-between functions more like an adverb.
We usually use between before the object it refers to:
Between life and death is a long, hard life.
In-between normally comes after the thing it refers to, like in your example.
Here is another example using in between:
I couldn't find my key anywhere, not under the ...
6
It is hard that I can't see you [2]
This matter that I can't see you is hard for me [4]
that I can't see you is hard [3]
that I can't see you is hard for me [1]
I've ranked according to my ear's sense of idiomatic expression. I use that-clauses as subjects instead of dummy "it" but some speakers find that-clauses a bit wooden when used in ...
6
The general rule for noun phrases like this is to separate them by spaces.
However, many* specific pairs of words have exceptions and are either written hyphenated, or are even merged into a new word with no separation at all. For example, "copy editor" is in the process of moving from unhyphenated noun phrase through hyphenated noun phrase to new word, ...
6
The historical reason is given here:
homesickness (n.) 1756, translating German Heimweh, from Heim "home"
(see home (n.)) + Weh "woe, pain;" the compound is from Swiss dialect,
expressing a longing for the mountains, and was introduced to other
European languages 17c. by Swiss mercenaries.
Online Etymology Dictionary
Answer
It is that way ...
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