# EN: Tourist class, first class / tourist-class, first-class



## EmptyGirl

Bonjour, j'ai des problèmes d'empoi du tiret !

dois-je mettre le tiret entre tourist/first et class dans ce contexte :

a tourist class ticket

a first class room

?

Merci d'avance pour votre aide !


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## hecoh

Bonjour EmptyGirl ,

No dash(tiret) IMHO!
_a tourist class ticket_
_a first class ticket_

Cordialement,
Herve


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## EmptyGirl

ok merci 

moi je penchais plus pour le tiret ^^

je suis contente d'avoir un autre avis


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## SwissPete

Moi aussi !

Avec un tiret, _tourist-class_ et _first-class_ deviennent des adjectifs, modifiant _ticket_.

Mais attendons d'autre avis.


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## Bobbum

When I Googled _Star Spangled Banner_ (our national anthem) some of the sites use Star Spangled and others Star-spangled. There's been a tendency in avant garde literature to make them one word: starspangled sunstreaked, etc. I think James Joyce may have started that.


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## titi22

no dash! IMHO too!
If you had 'a blue-eyed girl' or a 'dark-haired boy', you would have some dashes because 'eye' and 'hair' become adjectives combinated with the first adjectives 'blue' and 'dark', but 'class' remains a name used as an adjective.   
Are there any natives to confirm this?


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## misterk

In English, both these phrases -- _tourist-class_ _ticket_ and _first-class_ _ticket_ -- do require a hyphen.  The hyphenated words are being used as adjectives.  Thus:

He traveled in tourist class:  no hyphen.
He bought a tourist-class ticket: hyphen required.

If you write the sentence with the adjectival phrase, and you do not use the hyphen, there is potential ambiguity.  E.g., "He bought a first class ticket."  "He bought a first what?"  _First_ cannot stand alone; it has to be linked to _class_, and that is accomplished by the hyphen.

Penchez pour le tiret!


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## hecoh

Sorry misterk but hereafter is the ad inviting you to visit Las Vegas:
"First Class Flight to Las Vegas!
...Buying a *business class flights* to Las Vegas during winter or spring can be a great way to find a lower price on *a first class ticket*. Since winter and spring are generally considered to be the slow season for Las Vegas tourism, travelers will find the majority of travel deals offered during these seasons. Rates for most Las Vegas hotels will also be lower during these months, omitting popular holidays."


Cheers,
Herve

PS: the link to the website : http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/nevada/las-vegas/first-class-flight-to-las-vegas
PS2: i could have posted many other links to airlines sites where "Tourist class tickets" was spelt without any hyphen!


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## hecoh

[...]
Another one from Wikipedia with the quoted content of an article hereafter :
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_class*
"_Airlines
A typical wide-body jet plane seat plan (Asiana Boeing 747-400)

Economy class cabin (*NOT "Economy-class cabin"(my own input)*)

Business class cabin

First class cabin

Airlines traditionally have three travel classes, although many airlines are eliminating first class from international flights and now offer business class as the highest level of service:
First Class, generally the most expensive and most comfortable accommodations available.
Business Class, high quality, traditionally purchased by business travellers (sometimes called executive class)
Premium Economy, slightly better Economy Class seating (greater distance between rows of seats; the seats themselves may or may not be wider than regular economy class)
[...]_"!

Cheers ( no offence intended),
Herve


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## ewie

We've been talking (yet again) about hyphenation in English Only _aujourd'hui même_ ~ _first class ticket_ comes up in there!

The inconvenient truth of the matter is that there is *no hard-and-fast rule* ~ it's very largely a matter of personal preference, regional variation, adherence to style guides (if you're the kind of person who needs to follow style guides), etc. etc.
That said, there is a _general tendency_ in British English to dispense with punctuation when it's not necessary to *understanding*.  This is not the general tendency in the United States.

I ~ personally ~ wouldn't dream of writing _first-class_ in any circumstances.


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## panjandrum

Here are several useful links that describe the use of hyphens with compound modifiers in English.
University of Sussex
_Now here is something important: it is usually essential to hyphenate compound modifiers._

Capital Community College
_creating compound words, particularly modifiers before nouns (the well-known actor, my six-year-old daughter, the out-of-date curriculum_

The OWL at Purdue
_Use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before a noun:
_​
US Government Printing Office
_Print a hyphen between words, or abbreviations and words, combined to form a unit modifier immediately preceding the word modified, except as indicated in rule 6.16 and elsewhere throughout this chapter._
_Where meaning is clear and readability is not aided, it is not necessary to use a hyphen to form a temporary or made compound._

To avoid having to think too deeply about whether the hypen is important or not, some do it all the time.  That means your ticket is a tourist-class ticket and your room is a first-class room. I'm not suggesting it is wrong to omit these, simply that it is labour-saving to include them 

Of course the ticket is for tourist class and the room is first class (no hyphen).


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## ewie

panjandrum said:


> US Government Printing Office
> _Print a hyphen between words, or abbreviations and words, combined to form a unit modifier immediately preceding the word modified, except as indicated in rule 6.16 and elsewhere throughout this chapter._
> _Where meaning is clear and readability is not aided, it is not necessary to use a hyphen to form a temporary or made compound._


Exactly.
confused

The _vast majority_ of people who speak, read, write English on a daily basis wouldn't know a 'unit modifier' if it sat on their face.
Only people who _have to_ follow the US Government Printing Office's style guide _have to_ follow this rule (whatever it is) ... _have to_ refer to 'rule 6.16' every time they put pen to paper ...
and how ... 'meaning is clear and readability is not aided' ... to _who[m]_ ... and just what the _pheucque _is a 'temporary or made compound' ... ?


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## JamesM

(I believe a temporary or made compound would be something like "explosive-sniffing dog".  )

I would write "first class" if talking about a ticket. I would probably write "first-class idiot". Since I'm so inconsistent in my own use I'm probably not a good source for information on this one. 

I think it's a matter of preference, as ewie said. I certainly wouldn't write "sixth-grade teacher" for a person who taught sixth grade, for example, but that's a case where a noun is being used as an adjective, by some definitions. I think it depends on whether you see it as a noun phrase or an adjective modifying a noun. To me, "first class ticket" is a noun phrase like "sixth grade teacher". If I'm describing something that's excellent, I would use "first-class", but to me a first class ticket doesn't mean that the ticket itself is excellent; it's a ticket that allows me into the first class section.


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## sdgraham

You are never wrong to use a hyphen to clearly bind an adverb to the adjective it modifies, but generally speaking, the rule is to do what you need to do to maintain clarity.

If you leave the hyphen out of JamesM's "explosive-sniffing dog," it could be read that that one has an explosive dog that also sniffed.

A "first class ticket" doesn't cause problems, but what if we talked about "first class warfare?" Is that the first instance of class warfare or is it warfare that is first class?

(See panj's quote from the GPO)

Back to the original post, I would write.

"A tourist-class ticket" (It's not a ticket for a bunch of students on a class tripl)

 As for a "first-class room, " I would hyphenate it lest somebody think I'm talking about a classroom. 

(I also tend to use hyphens since they don't cost any more than spaces and it's become a habit ")


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## Harry Batt

I don't hold a brief for commas nor hyphens. My _Concise Handbook for Writers _devotes a section to hyphens the size of _War and Peace. _You can study hyphens with compound adjectives, compound words,dividing words, numbers, numbers and fractions, possessive nouns, prefixes, suffixes and suspended. I will recommend the Ewie plan; use as few hypens you need for clarity. I just can't carry the handbook around wherever I go for whenever I need to consult with a hyphen rule.


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## ewie

Harry Batt said:


> My _Concise Handbook for Writers _devotes a section to hyphens the size of _War and Peace._


Oh as _short _as that, Mr.Batt?


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## wildan1

I also would tend to use hyphens for clarity rather than as a rule of consistency. The only hard-and-fast rule I am aware of (note the hyphens--do I make myself clear?  ) is NOT using hyphens with adverbs modifying adjectives when the adverb ends in _-ly: fully lined jacket_ vs. _well-worn jacket. _

There is some arcane logic to this convention; don't ask me what! All I know is that any US copy editor would get out a big red pen if you tried to use a hyphen there...

PS _a dash (un tiret)_ is not the same as _a hyphen (un trait d'union)_


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## hecoh

wildan1 said:


> PS _a dash (un tiret)_ is not the same as _a hyphen (un trait d'union)_



Thanks Pyan!

You are quite right wildan... As one said : "le trait d’union unit, le tiret divise"

If you all don't mind, i wish to go back over the question asked by EmptyGirl.
Well... if as a birthday gift, one of the members who posted in this thread, prone to use a hyphen in this case, would be so kind to offer me the most expensive Singapore Airlines or Air France ticket to fly over to NYC in an Airbus 580, my eyes would sparkle less if the ticket was labelled "first-class".
Without any hyphen, i could glue it on a wall of my bedroom and in my opinion the wording seems much distinguished!.

Cheers,
Hervé


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