True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters

True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters By Mark Nichol Phrasal adjectives, the sets of words that combine to modify a noun, can be tricky. Usually, words in phrasal adjectives are hyphenated to signal their interrelationship, but there are exceptions, and confusion often arises when phrases resemble but do not constitute phrasal adjectives. In English grammar, the assumption is that two adjacent nouns constitute a description of a single entity unless the first noun is hyphenated to a preceding adjective to form a phrasal adjective. For example, in â€Å"They earned their third straight regular season victory that day,† the reference appears to be to a season victory that is regular. Attaching the adjective regular to the noun season with a hyphen clarifies that the reference is to a victory that pertains to the regular season: â€Å"They earned their third straight regular-season victory that day.† Why not hyphenate â€Å"third straight† as well? The phrase modifies â€Å"regular-season victory,† but â€Å"third straight† is not a phrasal adjective; the noun is the phrase â€Å"straight victory,† and third modifies the entire phrase (not just straight), which in turn modifies â€Å"regular-season victory.† To see why this is so, replace the entire phrase â€Å"third straight regular-season victory† with any phrase beginning with an ordinal number followed by an adjective and then a noun (a phrasal adjective in place of â€Å"regular-season† is irrelevant): â€Å"first full sentence,† â€Å"second tall man,† and so on; no hyphenation is called for. The full sentence is the first one, and the tall man is the second one. But isn’t this the same type of construction as seen in â€Å"The team achieved the third-highest score in the franchise’s history,† in which â€Å"third-highest† is correctly hyphenated because it modifies score? No. â€Å"Third highest score† refers to the third in a series of highest scores, but that’s not what this sentence is referring to; the reference is to a score that is third highest. Also, in â€Å"The win snapped their opponents’ sixteen-game home winning streak,† â€Å"sixteen-game† correctly modifies â€Å"home winning streak.† But why isn’t â€Å"home winning† itself hyphenated to indicate that it’s a phrasal adjective modifying streak? Because it’s not a phrasal adjective. The modifier in this sentence is home, modifying the noun phrase â€Å"winning streak.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Spelling Test 1Capitalization Rules for Names of Historical Periods and Movements6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know

Ricardo Semiler and Semco Company and its Changes Case Study

Ricardo Semiler and Semco Company and its Changes - Case Study Example No. The older Semler, Antonio was already culturally rooted in his management ways of being too bureaucratic and autocratic. He also cannot separate his personal affairs to business and this made Semler & Company under his leadership a moribund. Moreso, he did not have the modern business perspective of the time to change his style of leadership unlike the younger Semler, Ricardo who went to Harvard business school. Yes, the transformation and change of the company would have still come even if things were going well. The external factors cannot change the trajectory of the company when Ricardo Semler assumed leadership of Semco because he really intended to change the autocratic leadership of the company. The crisis only highlighted how effective the change to the company. In a way the change was drastic. Upon assumption as the new CEO, Ricardo Semler fired two-thirds of the top management of Semler & Company and that included many close friends of his father. This would not have been possible under his father because Antonio Semler did not separate work from his personal relationships. The new set up of the company was also a total departure of the old autocratic style of leadership of the company. The young Semler felt that the old autocratic leadership thwarted people’s motivation and creativity. Thus, he decided that the authority to make decisions at Semco to be more evenly distributed. In the process, he dismantled the rigid bureaucracy and structure of the company to make it more flexible based on the new three values of the company – employee participation, profit sharing and free flow of information. To emphasize the change, even the name of the company was changed from Semler & Company to Semco. There were a lot of changes that can be considered drastic if it will be compared  to the old leadership.   Strategy wise, among them product was product diversification and the creation of Nucleus of Technological Innovation (NTI).   Leadership style also changed to democratic and participatory to the point that employees can already direct themselves- set their own budget, even their own salaries and even the hiring and firing decision of both employees and managers.