Use hyphens to avoid ambiguity
Use hyphens to avoid ambiguity (man eating shark vs man-eating shark, recover vs re-cover)
What you'll learn
- 1
Imagine you see a sign: 'man eating chicken'. 🐔 Does it mean a man who is eating chicken, or a chicken that eats men?!
- 2
Which one means 'a chicken that eats men'?
- 3
Let's fix this sentence: 'I saw a little used car.' 🚗 Does it mean the car is small, or that it hasn't been used much?
- 4
Drag the hyphen into the right place to make this clear: 'a hot water bottle' 🫗
- 5
Which one means a bottle that holds hot water, not a bottle that is hot?
- 6
Try this one: 'She is a part time worker.' 👩💼 Does she work part of the time, or is she a worker who is part of something?
- 7
Which one means 'a worker who works for part of the time'?
Practise Use hyphens to avoid ambiguity with Whizlo
Free AI-tutored lessons, unlimited practice questions, and progress tracking for ages 10–11. Aligned to the UK National Curriculum.