Talk:Alexander Durley (high school coach)

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Title hyphen[edit]

I won't move it back, but it escapes my understanding why the disambiguator here should be an exception to the grammatical rule that compound adjectives have hyphens. He was not a high coach of schools, he was a coach in high schools. Is there some MOS or WikiProject rule running counter to normal usage here? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:10, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because "high school" is a noun, not a compound adjective, cf. High school football. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:10, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a noun, or more properly an adjective plus a noun, being used as an adjective modifying "coach". The example you cite is also ungrammatical, so I ask again, is there some MOS or local rule mandating this incorrect usage? Yngvadottir (talk) 05:49, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that high school football is ungrammatical? Jweiss11 (talk) 06:00, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am indeed. It needs a hyphen—unless, as I say, there is an MOS rule at some level that we don't use them in article titles. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:10, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yngvadottir, I don't think there are any special MOS rules in play here. I think it's just a basic question of grammar that you are misinterpreting. "High school" is a compound noun that isn't hyphenated in common usage. If fact, I've never seen it hyphenated, aside from your original naming for this article. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It shouldn't be hyphenated when it's used as a noun; but in these two cases it's being used as an adjective, to describe "coach" in the one case, "football" in the other. A classic case of a compound adjective. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:49, 17 November 2016 (UTC) - I looked at the MOS rules for titles but didn't see it covered there; the grammar rule is covered by MOS:HYPHEN item 3, although it's presented there as a matter of clarity. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:03, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Search Wikipedia or The New York Times or any other reputable newspaper for terms like "high school coach" or "high school teacher", e.g. here. You will see that it is never hyphenated. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I could get sniffy about the NY Times' copyediting (a long-time sore point with me), but our MOS zealots are also painting it as an issue of clarity, not correctness, so it may be one of these things that's no longer mandatory. It's still incorrect in my view, however. I'll ping Drmies, who is a good deal less of a prescriptivist than I am, in case he wants to tell me I am decades out of date. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:26, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I did a quick search on "high school coach" and "high school teacher" at Newspapers.com for the years 1900 to 1950. Didn't see any hyphens there. This doesn't appears to be a recent style change. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:56, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't mind me asking, where are you from, Yngvadottir? Country is sufficient. Lizard (talk) 21:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I prefer to retain some degree of mystery :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 21:28, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. Was just wondering if it might be a regional difference. Lizard (talk) 21:32, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Funny--we just covered this in class (HEL). As far as I know, and I say this having widely read and being completely unaware of what the style guides say, "high school teacher" is not hyphenated in US English, and I'm not sure that it ever was. The NYT repeats the argument that the phrase "high school" is "well established", whatever that may mean. I don't know who these guys are, but that's a pretty common and laidback attitude that I see all over the internet hits. Also, this is how I've been editing my wife's yearbook, so I better believe it. Drmies (talk) 03:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aah, then it is an established exception, and that explains why Jweiss11 couldn't see the applicability of the rule. Thanks all. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:21, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please forgive me for allowing my common sense to blind me to grammatical esoterica! Jweiss11 (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]