Someone has knee length hair or feet length hair

[tufguy]

Can we say "Someone has knee length hair or feet length hair"?

 

[Tdol]

You would need to make a couple of small changes. Have a go.

 

[GoesStation]

Look for consistency in your options.

 

[tufguy]

You would need to make a couple of small changes. Have a go.

Someone has knee-length hair or feet-length hair

 

[emsr2d2]

Someone has knee-length hair or feet-length hair.

That would be a strange sentence to say. Surely you can see if this "someone"'s hair reaches their knees or their feet.

 

[GoesStation]

Look for consistency in your options.

Someone has knee-length hair or feet-length hair

Do you see an inconsistency between the underlined words?

 

[tufguy]

Do you see an inconsistency between the underlined words?

Sorry I don't understand. Do you mean I should say one thing at a time? For example "Ann has knee length hair".

 

[Rover_KE]

GeneD,

1. GS is hoping tufguy will figure it out for himself.

2. You must state 'Not a teacher' when you are answering questions.

 

[GeneD]

GeneD,

1. GS is hoping tufguy will figure it out for himself.

Sorry about that.

2. You must state 'Not a teacher' when you are answering questions.

Sorry about it too. I just thought that it's necessary only for the interested in language, not for learners.

 

[Tdol]

Do you see an inconsistency between the underlined words?

The hyphens are the first step, but we do need to iron out this one last inconsistency. ;-)

 

[Rover_KE]

Sorry about it too. I just thought that it's necessary only for the interested in language, not for learners.

Extract from the Posting Guidelines:


About Replying to Posts:

You are welcome to answer questions posted in the Ask a Teacher forum as long as your suggestions, help, and advice reflect a good understanding of the English language. If you are not a teacher, you will need to state that clearly in your post.

 

[tufguy]

GeneD,

1. GS is hoping tufguy will figure it out for himself.

2. You must state 'Not a teacher' when you are answering questions.

Sorry I am confused.

 

[GoesStation]

Sorry I don't understand. Do you mean I should say one thing at a time? For example "Ann has knee length hair".

Look at the underlined words next to one another:

knee - feet

 

[Tdol]

Why is one singular and one plural? We have two knees and two feet. If knee-length is correct, and it is, what is the other correct form?

 

[Tarheel]

Perhaps:

She has long, long hair. It goes all the way down to her knees.

 

[emsr2d2]

Part of the problem here is that very few people have hair that reaches their knees or their feet. We have terms for hair ranging from very short to about waist-length but we so rarely have to use a phrase for anything longer than that, that we don't have set phrases.

She has very short hair.
She has a bob.
He has a crew-cut.
He has shoulder-length hair.
She has waist-length hair.

In everyday real life, you're not going to need more than that.

 

[GoesStation]

In everyday real life, you're not going to need more than that.

Actually this thread reminded me of something from my life. Recently a woman moved back to my town after living elsewhere for thirty years or so. Seeing her again reminded me of the very first time I saw her. She was extremely beautiful, and her ankle-length hair was particularly striking. (She eventually gave in to practicality and cut it.)

 

[GoesStation]

To wrap this up, Tufguy, the problem I was trying to bring to your attention in knee length hair or feet length hair is that "knee" is singular, and "feet" is plural. The two attributive nouns are inconsistent. The sentence could logically only be correct if both nouns had the same number.

That would take us to either knees length/feet length or knee length/foot length. English uses singular nouns in this construction, so the second pair would be the likeliest.

A hyphen is required in these compound adjectives, so you'd have to write knee-length/foot-length.


Finally, although foot-length appears logical, we only say ankle-length. Since "foot" is a unit of linear measure, foot-length would be ambiguous: do you mean "one foot long" or "all the way down to a person's feet"?

 

[emsr2d2]

Whilst I agree entirely with the ambiguity of "feet-length hair" or "foot-length hair", I would say that if we were actually talking about the linear length of the hair, we would say "foot-long hair" or "three-foot-long hair".