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  1. dillseed

    dillseed Active Member

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    tour-de-force performance

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by dillseed, Dec 23, 2014.

    Would the commonly redundant phrase "tour-de-force performance" take hyphens as shown — yes or no?

    Thank you.
     
  2. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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  3. mad_hatter

    mad_hatter Active Member

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    I wouldn't hyphenate it either (although I guess it would be okay to do so).

    However, I don't think the "performance" is redundant. It may be a little clumsy. 'Her performance was a tour de force' may be more pleasing than 'She gave a tour de force performance', but out of context it's impossible to say how you would best write this.
     
  4. SwampDog

    SwampDog Senior Member

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    Three simple French words without hyphens. The most you may want to do is italicise them.
     
  5. dillseed

    dillseed Active Member

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    Thanks, everybody.
     
  6. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I actually would use hyphens here because it's being used as a phrasal adjective. On the other hand, if you use it as a noun phrase ("The performance was a tour de force"), then I wouldn't use hyphens. This is purely a personal preference, however. You can choose to leave out the hyphens, and it would be grammatically correct.
     

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