At 7 a.m. I was wide awake. At 7 a.m. I was wide-awake. Different dictionaries show different results. Thanks.
To me, it would depend on how it was used: By that time I was wide awake. versus She stared at me with wide-awake eyes. Googling tells me that it's wide-awake "or wide awake when postpositive". Googling further tells me that I don't understand the difference between predicative and postpositive adjectives and I should study more. ChickenFreak
Quote Originally Posted by ChickenFreak View Post To me, it would depend on how it was used: By that time I was wide awake. versus She stared at me with wide-awake eyes. Googling tells me that it's wide-awake "or wide awake when postpositive". Googling further tells me that I don't understand the difference between predicative and postpositive adjectives and I should study more. ChickenFreak That's like greek to me. (Sheez, what are they? I have never even heard of them.)
Check out this website for the definitions of attributive, predicative, and postpositive adjectives: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/adjectiv/attribut.htm The little quiz thinger they have at the end is useful, too. As for your original question, lameri, the first sentence ("At 7 a.m. I was wide awake.") would be correct because "wide" is being used to modify the original adjective "awake." Take a look at the sentence if you substituted "barely" or "almost" in for "wide"; you wouldn't need a hyphen. This is opposed to if "wide-awake" were being used as a single adjective, as in ChickenFreak's example ("She stared at me with wide-awake eyes.").
This should make things simpler...that is, if *I* understand it now. "wide-awake" is a compound adjective: He was in a wide-awake state of consciousness. "wide awake" is an predicative adjective (wide)/adjective: He was wide awake. If "wide-awake" is modifying a noun, hyphenate it. If "wide" is modifying "awake," don't. Did that make any sense to anybody?
