I put this here because I’m not sure if it’s a regional thing and there could be more than one answer.
Husband and I were having lunch up at Alley 64 today and when I went outside to have a smoke, I was looking at the advertising signs on the Tore and Luke’s across the street. One sign said, “Enjoy - Old Fashion Vienna Beef Hot Dogs”.
This seemed odd to me - I had always thought the phrase was old fashioned. In other words, “Enjoy - Old Fashioned Vienna Beef Hot Dogs”.
Which is correct? Can I laugh and point at their sign or am I the one who is wrong?
I know - this is really important in the whole scheme of things, but it gives me something to think about while smoking in the parking lot of the Harley bar.
Either way you do it it’s supposed to be hyphenated. It’s supposed to be *old-fashioned *to be grammatically correct, I think because they are fashioned, not a fashion. But since it’s a sign the rules of ‘sign language’ should apply, which means any spelling or grammar that people recognize is good enough, particularly when it reduces the number of letters.
WHatever gets you your jollies, I suppose, but they’re perfectly cromulent. Ice tea is exactly equivalent to ice cream and ice water. Whip cream follows the same construction and removes the awkward /t/ sound between the /p/ and the /k/, allowing the /p/ to be replaced with a glottal. As for mash potatoes, I’ve never heard it, but it is a similar construction. And box lunch? It’s lunch in a box and shouldn’t be an issue.
Again, though, if you enjoy getting bugged, more power to you.
I think that they were trying to be fancy (therefore, they avoided the less posh-sounding “old style”), but at the same time for many people “old fashioned” (with or without hyphen) means “out of style”, not “old style”. Style is a noun, they substituted it with the equivalent noun fashion.
Yeah I’m more bothered by the “Enjoy - blah blah blah” construction. What the hell is the point of just saying “Enjoy” then hyphenating what you will be enjoying?
